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 Blog: www.designthinkingdigest.com Design: www.microsoft.com/design Tools: www.microsoft.com/expression Community: http://www.visitmix.com "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrei Herasimchuk Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 7:17 PM To: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Don't listen to your customers. On Mar 27, 2008, at 11:05 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Your learned opinions are sought. Don't ask people what they want. Simply ask them what they *think* they want. Pause. Then ask them why. After that, you're on your own. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ 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 ________________________________________________________________ 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
