Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups are a great way to gain a more detailed understanding of your target audiences' attitudes, perceptions, feelings and ideas. They are cost-effective and conducive to quick-turnaround projects.

Similar to traditional face-to-face focus groups, they are well suited to exploring group consensus, development of creative concepts and situations where respondents' interactions with one another are important.

A typical online focus group lasts between one and two hours, and contains between eight and 12 respondents. Groups are moderated by two trained researchers: one to direct and interact with the entire group; and another to further question individual respondents and expand comments they have made.

As the focus groups happen in real time, clients can view the groups live from their own PC and communicate directly with the moderators as the groups happen.

OpinionPanel uses an application that is the equivalent of a traditional viewing facility - but online. The groups take place in a secure online chat room with a range of specialist features designed for qualitative research, including a 'whiteboard' for the display of group discussion materials such as images, videos, documents and websites.

Online groups have some added advantages over traditional face-to-face groups, such as:

• Participants don't need to be in the same location to take part
• Fast turnaround of results and analysis
• No one participant can easily dominate the group - everyone can have their say, without fear of being drowned out
• Enjoyable and instinctive way for students to take part in research
• The anonymity provided by this method enables more open and honest responses.

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Online discussion groups - similar to MSN but with highly effective moderator controls including an interactive whiteboard.