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Usography has conducted numerous interviews and focus groups for both small and extremely large companies. Using an objective third party such as Usography to conduct interviews and focus groups lends credibility to the exercise, so that participants take it seriously and volunteer as much information as possible. It also allows team members to spend more time observing, and less time worrying about mechanics of the sessions.
Interviews
Usography has conducted numerous in-depth interviews with users throughout the U.S. and Europe. Typically, interviews are conducted at a site designated by our clients, with participants that match very specific criteria, such as:
- age
- income
- education
- profession or work role
- ethnic background
- computer skills
- technology adoption rate, etc.
Usography has conducted interviews with an extremely diverse set of people from all demographic categories and professional backgrounds, including flight attendants, express shippers, cellphone purchasers, career seekers, picture takers, media reps, retail salespeople, customer service representatives, etc.
Usography is usually involved in writing both the participant screener and the interview script. Optional services include videotaping, creation of a highlights video, transcriptions, and documentation of findings.
Usography interviews people in our Athens office as well as on-location. The selection of an interview location depends on the needs of our clients, availability of resources, and other project considerations. Interviewing people in the location where they actually use the type of design under consideration can yield many clues to the effectiveness of various design possibilities. Participants may point to objects or information that affect their ability to interact with the design, or they may indicate aspects of the current design that present challenges or opportunities to the achievement of common tasks.
Focus groups
Focus groups have been part of qualitative research efforts for many years. Focus groups provide useful information in situations where it’s important to hear people talking among themselves about a design or about brand concepts. Focus groups don’t typically provide design feedback that is as specific or prescriptive as user testing, but there are undeniably occasions where it is very instructive to hear a group of people discuss a topic. With proper facilitation, the conversation can yield many natural observations, and may reveal emotions and thoughts difficult to get in other ways.
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