Wasn't it mentioned here or somewhere else that the first use of "Focus Groups" was for the Edsel?? If that doesn't about say it all -
There is the story about the 12 people (?) brought in to focus group on a new personal stereo (boombox they were called at the time), and people were asked what colours they would like - and a large majority responded very favorably to the canary yellow boombox. At the end - as they were walking out the door - they were offered boomboxes as thank you's for doing the focus group. Yellow was offered. Everyone took black. Users lie. Ouch! What did Will just say? They lie. Sometimes they don't even know it. In user testing - they could have completed a task 10 minutes ago - and they will lie about what they did - well - they will not "remember" correctly what they did -- which is why you observe what they do - not what they said they did. Let the flames begin - I am pulling out my umbrella now - just incase anyone throws veggies. On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Chris Bernard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Microsoft uses a lot of focus groups. Take that for what's it worth. From > an ideation and concepting perspective I think they have minimal value and > can in fact be disruptive, in that they can force you down a prescribed path > far too soon. Far better to follow Andrei's advice or even better augment it > by watching people. Even one person with a camera and notebook making quite > observations can be a great augmentation to structured interviews. > > The canonical example of focus groups is New Coke. They focus grouped the > heck out of that before they launched. > > Chris Bernard > Microsoft > User Experience Evangelist > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 630.530.4208 Office > 312.925.4095 Mobile > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
