| When researching a website, it’s rare
to find a client who only wants to know about website usability. Rather, companies want to
know everything users think of their site – how it works, what it offers, how it
compares with the competition both online and offline, etc. To address these needs, we’ve come up with a hybrid
methodology for website research. We conduct a few days of one-on-one interview and
observation sessions, where we learn about users’ individual reactions to the site
and gain detailed information about usability, as well as a number of focus groups in
which each respondent has a computer connected to the Internet, independently browses the
site being tested (as well as competitive sites), and then the sites are discussed as a
group. This research design gives us the benefits of both worlds: we make sure we hear
individual opinions and replicate the individual web-surfing experience, but we also
benefit from the group dynamic and the greater number of respondents in the focus group
format. This enables us to gain deeper insights that individual respondents might not be
able to articulate without the stimulus of the group discussion.
More anecdotes (click on the quote to read
the anecdote):
"We don’t know what we have to say
to sway them. How do we turn prospects into customers?"
An unusual focus group technique yields results
"Talk
to the employees. But don’t tell me that they need to be paid more money."
Clarifying objectives with clients
"That
sounds like it came from the Iraqi Ministry of Information!"
Dealing with difficult respondents
"But
if the software goes down, my whole business would be paralyzed."
Category knowledge helps obtain additional insights
|