A focus group is a focused discussion where a moderator leads a group of participants, usually ranging from 5 to 12 people, through a set of questions on a particular topic. Focus groups are often used in the early stages of product planning and requirements gathering to obtain feedback about users, products, concepts, prototypes, general tasks, strategies, and environments. Focus groups can also be used to obtain consensus about specific issues. A focus group is generally not considered a usability evaluation method.

Focus group moderators generally follow a discussion plan that has the questions, prompts, tasks, and exercises for the group. The success of a focus group is heavily dependent on the skill of the moderator. The moderator must generate interest in the topic, involve all the participants, keep the discussion on track (but also allow for unexpected diversions), keep dominant personalities from overwhelming other participants, and not give away the sponsor’s beliefs or expectations.

Outcomes and Deliverables

The outcomes and deliverables from a focus group include:

• Notes and transcripts of the sessions.
• Video or audiotapes of the sessions.
• A report that describes the purpose of the study, a description of the procedures, a summary of the findings, and perhaps most important, the significant themes that emerged within and between focus group sessions.
• A presentation to the sponsor and other stakeholders on the product team.

Benefits, Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

• You can get feedback about what people do over a long period of time.
• Focus groups used early in a project can produce insights and questions from the interaction among different users or stakeholders.
• Focus groups are relatively inexpensive (assuming that participants are from the same geographical area) and can be arranged quickly.

Disadvantages

• Focus groups involve "stories" about behavior and do not examine actual user/stakeholder behavior.
• The data from focus groups are self-report data which depend on the participants’ truthfulness and recall accuracy. What people report may be quite different than what they actually do.
• Dominant participants can skew the results of the focus groups. Conflicts and power struggles can arise among participants.
• Any quantitative conclusions from a focus group may be suspect because the participants are often chosen from a convenience sample.
• Moderating a focus group is difficult. Moderators must be trained to deal with a wide range of group dynamics as well as individual differences among participants.
• Focus groups are vulnerable to random events like storms, bad directions, and traffic jams.