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An online focus group is one type of focus group, and is a sub-set of online research methods. They are typically an appropriate research method for consumer research, business-to-business research and political research.
A moderator invites pre-screened, qualified respondents who represent the target of interest to log on to conferencing software at a pre-arranged time and to take part in an online focus group. It is common for respondents to receive an incentive for participating. Discussions generally last one hour to 90 minutes. The moderator guides the discussion using a combination of predetermined questions and unscripted probes. In the best discussions, as with face to face groups, respondents interact with each other as well as the moderator in real time to generate deeper insights about the topic.
Online focus groups are appropriate for consumer research, business to business research and political research. Interacting over the web avoids a significant amount of travel expense. It allows respondents from all over the world to gather, electronically for a more representative sample. Often respondents open up more online than they would in person, which is valuable for sensitive subjects. [1] Like in-person focus groups, online groups are usually limited to 8-10 participants. 'Whiteboard' exercises and the ability to mark up concepts or other visual stimuli simulate many of the characteristics of in-person groups.
In addition to the savings on travel, online focus groups often can be accomplished faster than traditional groups because respondents are recruited from online panel members who are often qualified to match research criteria.
There are a variety of software options, most of which offer similar features but can vary significantly in price. It is important to choose your software carefully, ensuring that it is easy enough to use by both you as a researcher and your participants. Of course, you should also choose a software that will meet your research needs effectively. Software is just one aspect of online groups, just as facilities are just one aspect of face to face groups. As with in-person groups, the skill of the moderator, the quality of the recruiting and the ability to tie the results to research objectives and business decisions is critical to the value of the research to the client.
A new emerging type of online focus group is one where there are only single participants, with no moderator (unmoderated online focus groups). [2] A system invites prescreened, qualified respondents to participate on a "first come, first served" basis, and to conduct a task or series of tasks such as interacting with a website or website prototype, reacting to an online ad or concept, viewing videos, commercials (whether for TV or online production), etc., while at their home or workplace. While the participant is conducting the assigned task, his or her own webcam is recording their face, and at the same time, every action taking place on the screen is being recorded. After the task is completed the participant is asked to answer a series of post task survey questions such as "What was the message being conveyed by that ad? Why did you stop viewing that video? Why were you unable to complete the goal?" etc.
The results are composited into a 360° Video in Video (ViV), such that a synchronized recording of the desktop, [3] both browser and non browser related, is played (what the participants did), synchronized with a web cam recording of the participant in their home or workplace (what the participant said, who they are, and what is their context) playing simultaneously.
The first recorded online focus group was led by Bruce Hall (President, Eureka! Inventing) and Doug Brownstone (Rutgers University), both marketers at Novartis Consumer Health at the time based in Summit, New Jersey. While at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona in June, 1995 they led an online focus group on the Perdiem laxative brand which included ten women recruited from the brand's customer database. While the online tools were primitive at the time it was deemed to be valuable in collecting consumer insights.
This service was first brought to market by www.userlytics.com,[ citation needed ] and initially focused on the website usability and user experience field. However, its uses have since expanded to hosted prototype testing, ad and campaign optimization prior to multivariate testing, understanding analytics results, desktop and enterprise user interface (UI) testing, and software as a service (SaaS) testing.
U.S. Patent No. 6,256,663 [4] [5] is summarized as 'System and Method For Conducting Focus Groups Using Remotely Located Participants Over A Computer Network.' and was filed on January 22, 1999 by Greenfield Online, Inc. [6]
The market research technology provider Itracks (Interactive Tracking Systems Inc.) later acquired the patent in 2001 from Greenfield Online. [7] [8]
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. It is more concerned with the design intuitiveness of the product and tested with users who have no prior exposure to it. Such testing is paramount to the success of an end product as a fully functioning application that creates confusion amongst its users will not last for long. This is in contrast with usability inspection methods where experts use different methods to evaluate a user interface without involving users.
Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.
A focus group is a group interview involving a small number of demographically similar people or participants who have other common traits/experiences. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are used in market research to understand better people's reactions to products or services or participants' perceptions of shared experiences. The discussions can be guided or open. In market research, focus groups can explore a group's response to a new product or service. As a program evaluation tool, they can elicit lessons learned and recommendations for performance improvement. The idea is for the researcher to understand participants' reactions. If group members are representative of a larger population, those reactions may be expected to reflect the views of that larger population. Thus, focus groups constitute a research or evaluation method that researchers organize to collect qualitative data through interactive and directed discussions.
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers. In common parlance, the word "interview" refers to a one-on-one conversation between an interviewer and an interviewee. The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually providing information. That information may be used or provided to other audiences immediately or later. This feature is common to many types of interviews – a job interview or interview with a witness to an event may have no other audience present at the time, but the answers will be later provided to others in the employment or investigative process. An interview may also transfer information in both directions.
Qualitative marketing research involves a natural or observational examination of the philosophies that govern consumer behavior. The direction and framework of the research is often revised as new information is gained, allowing the researcher to evaluate issues and subjects in an in-depth manner. The quality of the research produced is heavily dependent on the skills of the researcher and is influenced by researcher bias.
Quantitative marketing research is the application of quantitative research techniques to the field of marketing research. It has roots in both the positivist view of the world, and the modern marketing viewpoint that marketing is an interactive process in which both the buyer and seller reach a satisfying agreement on the "four Ps" of marketing: Product, Price, Place (location) and Promotion.
Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use.
Quantitative research is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data. It is formed from a deductive approach where emphasis is placed on the testing of theory, shaped by empiricist and positivist philosophies.
A usability lab is a place where usability testing is done. It is an environment where users are studied interacting with a system for the sake of evaluating the system's usability.
An electronic meeting system (EMS) is a type of computer software that facilitates creative problem solving and decision-making of groups within or across organizations. The term was coined by Alan R. Dennis et al. in 1988. The term is synonymous with group support systems (GSS) and essentially synonymous with group decision support systems (GDSS). Electronic meeting systems form a class of applications for computer supported cooperative work.
In sociology and statistics research, snowball sampling is a nonprobability sampling technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances. Thus the sample group is said to grow like a rolling snowball. As the sample builds up, enough data are gathered to be useful for research. This sampling technique is often used in hidden populations, such as drug users or sex workers, which are difficult for researchers to access. As sample members are not selected from a sampling frame, snowball samples are subject to numerous biases. For example, people who have many friends are more likely to be recruited into the sample. When virtual social networks are used, then this technique is called virtual snowball sampling.
Advertising research is a systematic process of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising. Advertising research is a detailed study conducted to know how customers respond to a particular ad or advertising campaign.
The pluralistic walkthrough is a usability inspection method used to identify usability issues in a piece of software or website in an effort to create a maximally usable human-computer interface. The method centers on recruiting a group of users, developers and usability professionals to step through a task scenario, discussing usability issues associated with dialog elements involved in the scenario steps. The group of experts used is asked to assume the role of typical users in the testing. The method is prized for its ability to be utilized at the earliest design stages, enabling the resolution of usability issues quickly and early in the design process. The method also allows for the detection of a greater number of usability problems to be found at one time due to the interaction of multiple types of participants. This type of usability inspection method has the additional objective of increasing developers’ sensitivity to users’ concerns about the product design.
The marketing research process is a six-step process involving the definition of the problem being studied upon, determining what approach to take, formulation of research design, field work entailed, data preparation and analysis, and the generation of reports, how to present these reports, and overall, how the task can be accomplished.
Netnography is a specific type of qualitative social media research. It adapts the methods of ethnography to understand social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. In netnography, a significant amount of the data originates in and manifests through the digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations recorded by contemporary communications networks. Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications.
Real-time Delphi (RTD) is an advanced form of the Delphi method. The advanced method "is a consultative process that uses computer technology" to increase efficiency of the Delphi process.
An online interview is an online research method conducted using computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as instant messaging, email, or video. Online interviews require different ethical considerations, sampling and rapport than practices found in traditional face-to-face (F2F) interviews. Online interviews are separated into synchronous online interviews, for example via online chat which happen in 'real time' online and asynchronous online interviews, for example via email conducted in non-real time. Some authors discuss online interviews in relation to online focus groups whereas others look at online interviews as separate research methods. This article will only discuss online interviews.
Online qualitative research refers to focus groups, individual depth interviews (IDIs) and other forms of qualitative research conducted online rather than face to face or via telephone.
User research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs and motivations through interviews, surveys, usability evaluations and other forms of feedback methodologies. It is used to understand how people interact with products and evaluate whether design solutions meet their needs. This field of research aims at improving the user experience (UX) of products, services, or processes by incorporating experimental and observational research methods to guide the design, development, and refinement of a product. User research is used to improve a multitude of products like websites, mobile phones, medical devices, banking, government services and many more. It is an iterative process that can be used at anytime during product development and is a core part of user-centered design.
An interview in qualitative research is a conversation where questions are asked to elicit information. The interviewer is usually a professional or paid researcher, sometimes trained, who poses questions to the interviewee, in an alternating series of usually brief questions and answers. They can be contrasted with focus groups in which an interviewer questions a group of people and observes the resulting conversation between interviewees, or surveys which are more anonymous and limit respondents to a range of predetermined answer choices. In addition, there are special considerations when interviewing children. In phenomenological or ethnographic research, interviews are used to uncover the meanings of central themes in the life world of the subjects from their own point of view.
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