What Is a Focus Group Interview?

The focus group interview method, also known as the group discussion method, uses a small forum to select a group of consumers or customers with homogeneity. Talk to a group of representative consumers or customers. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the relevant issues.

Also known as the group discussion method, it is the form of a small seminar where a trained host talks to a group of representative consumers or customers in an unstructured and natural form. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the relevant issues.

Focus group interviews have two special functions: one is to explore in-depth research questions, and group focus interviews are suitable for quickly understanding customers' impressions of a certain product, plan, service, etc .; to diagnose new plans, services, products (such as Potential problems in development, packaging) or advertising; collect general background information on research topics to form research hypotheses; understand group interview participants' views and attitudes on specific phenomena or problems, and use them for questionnaires, survey tools, or other more quantitative research Research tools are designed to collect information. The second is to supplement the analysis of large-scale, quantitative surveys. Group focus interviews can further collect data after the quantitative survey to help explain the results of the quantitative study more fully.

Focus group interview survey methods can be used in the following areas: 1) Reveal the group response to a problem or phenomenon. 2) Interviews can form hypotheses and inferences about a research. 3) Improve and perfect some quantitative research methods. 4) Explain and explain the results of some other quantitative research methods ^[1]

A) preparation

To organize and complete a group interview, three aspects of work are required.

1. Do the preparations before the forum. The main contents are:

1) Determine the theme of the meeting;

2) Determine the moderator of the meeting:

3) Select participants;

4) Choose the place and time for the symposium

5) Determine the number of seminars

6) Prepare the demonstration and recording tools needed for the symposium, such as recording and video equipment;

7) Where simultaneous translation is required, the translator should be made aware of what is being discussed.

2. Organize and control the whole process of the symposium

1) Be good at grasping the theme of the symposium

2) Coordination among participants

3) Keep a record of the seminar. The symposium is usually recorded by a special person. At the same time, it is often recorded by audio and video.

3. Do all the work after the forum

1) Organize and analyze the symposium records in time.

2) Review and study the situation of the symposium.

3) Make necessary supplementary investigations.

1. Arrangement of forum

2.Choose a host

3. Outline of Design Symposium

4. Issues to be aware of during group interviews

When conducting a focus interview, companies should pay attention to the following:

1. The purpose of the focus interview determines the information needed, and thus also the interviewees and moderators

Enterprises can apply some special research techniques, such as scale technology to test attitudes, and some special instruments, such as advertising effect testing, which often require instant displays and projectors, which need to be implemented early and ready to be in place.

2. People who have participated in the focus interview are inappropriate participants

3. Participants should avoid relationships with friends, colleagues, and colleagues because such relationships can affect speech and discussion. In the event of this, they should be asked to withdraw.

4. Number of participants in each group

It has always been considered that 8-12 people are suitable, but focus interviews with 4-5 people are often implemented. This should mainly depend on what is discussed. For example, when we conducted a focus group discussion for a home computer software, in order to allow consumers to be fully familiar with the software functions and to express their opinions as deeply as possible, each group had only 4 participants, and the discussion lasted more than 3 hours.

5. Measures to Attract Participants

The higher the reward, the more attractive it is to participate;

The more boring the research project, the higher the reward;

The symposium should be arranged as far as possible on the weekend;

Describe to the target person how interesting and meaningful the seminar is;

Emphasize that the participation of target candidates is very important for research.

6. Moderators should clarify their job responsibilities in the focus group discussions. Their job responsibilities include

Establish friendly relations with participants;

Explain the communication rules of the symposium;

Inform the purpose of the survey and be flexible according to the development of the discussion;

Seek the opinions of the participants and encourage them to discuss enthusiastically around the theme;

Summarize the opinions of the participants and judge the degree of agreement and differences on various parameters.

7. Moderators should grasp the atmosphere of the venue

The host should kindly and warmly thank everyone for their participation at the beginning of the discussion, and explain to everyone what the focus group discussion is about to make the participants as relaxed as possible. Then, introduce yourself honestly, and ask all participants to introduce themselves one by one. The communication rules should generally include the following and sincerely tell the participants:

There is no incorrect opinion, you can say what you think, as long as you say the truth;

Your opinion represents the opinions of many other consumers like you, so it is important;

should listen carefully to the opinions of others, do not allow mockery and derogation;

Don't talk to each other, you should speak out loud in turn;

Don't care about the moderator's point of view. The moderator is just like everyone on this research topic. The moderator is not an expert.

If you don't know or don't have an opinion on a certain topic, don't worry about it, and don't have to compile it temporarily.

In order to complete all questions within the scheduled time, please forgive the moderator may interrupt your speech and so on.

8.Focus and data analysis of the focus interview requires the host and analyst to participate together

They must watch the video again, not only to listen to what the participants are saying, but also to observe the speaker's facial expressions and body language.

Companies should pay particular attention to this concept when testing products, because participants are often reluctant to raise fierce objections to the "concepts" of design, and they will only recognize when companies themselves observe the scornful expressions of disdain of the participants. The concept is not welcome.