Focus Groups

Group of people. Given a stimulus. Asked to respond. Record their reactions and interactions. Qualitative research method. Exploratory research. Initial info gathering. How to give stimulus?
 * Can be done through online methods or in person
 * Moodboard - reference point and discussion enabling device
 * Complete a sentence
 * Construct a story
 * Physical product
 * Word association
 * Expressive. Relate third person's feelings & thoughts to the situation. eg: role playing
 * Scenario
 * Questioning and Probing - asking further, why what and how and more

Benefits and Drawbacks?
 * Benefits
 * Synergy
 * Snowballing
 * Spontaneity
 * Security
 * Serendipity
 * Drawbacks
 * Need group chemistry/right group of people
 * Potentially expensive
 * Generalisation difficult.
 * Difficult to record, analyse and interpret.
 * Organising the same time/place hard.

What kind of people to put in?
 * A sample of people representing an entire population?
 * Or a sample of people representing a subsection of a population?
 * Depends on the research purpose/question trying to answer
 * Age, geography, extent of difference between the participants, time and budget and etc

Time continuous or just one off?
 * Depends on what you are trying to achieve. Time an important factor to you? Then panel. Need a quick info gathering section? Cross-section. etc ect.
 * Panel - the same group of people used in a focus panel multiple times over a period of time.
 * More data
 * Continuity of opinions, can detect changes
 * Can build chemistry.
 * Have to keep people on the focus panel. Costly and difficult.
 * Can cause fatigue.
 * Cross Section - a one-off group of people used for one focus panel
 * One off thing so cheap
 * Faster to implement.
 * Lack of consistency.
 * Need to build a group of people each time.