Specialities

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View-Finders Market Research
11 Sandra Lane
Pearl River, NY 10965

Phone: (845)-735-7022
Toll Free - Skype customers:
(845)-735-7210
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Focus Groups

Background

Focus groups were originally called "focused interviews" or "group depth interviews". The technique was developed after World War II to evaluate audience response to radio programs. Ernest Dicther, a psychologist and marketing expert, originated the idea of having a "group therapy" for products, and according to a 1998 New York Times article, he was the first to coin the term "focus group".

Focus Group Format

Focus Groups consist of 6-10 people who are unfamiliar with each other. Respondents are selected because they have certain characteristics in common that relate to the topic of the focus group. The idea of focus groups is to take advantage of group interactions. View-Finders' moderators create a permissive and nurturing environment that encourages different perceptions and points of view, without pressuring participants to vote, plan or reach consensus.

The group discussion is conducted several times with similar types of participants to identify trends and patterns in perceptions. Careful and systematic analysis of the discussions provide clues and insights as to how a product, service, or opportunity is perceived by the group.

Dyads/Triads

Overview

* Groups of two or three respondents at a time, they are an intermediate point between In-Depth-Interviews and full Focus groups.
* They allow for a reasonable amount of depth to be covered but they also allow for some respondent interaction to occur.
* A great deal of communication is non-verbal and being physically together allows View-Finders' moderators to pick-up, and follow-through on subtle cues that might be missed through other mediums.
* The ability to show a broad array of visual aids or to have the respondent physically interact with a prototype or control panel is a big advantage.
* There can be a synergy in Diads-Triads where respondents piggy-back off of other respondents ideas in order to come up with a better solution than you might get with several people working separately.

In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are a marketing research interviewing technique used in situations where expert opinions are needed, or to gather detailed information from customers or users of competing products or services. The benefit is talking directly to one individual without the influence of any other respondents.

The point of in-depth interviews is to allow for a semi-structured discussion in which allows View-Finders' moderators to treat their respondents as "experts" in whatever field or situation they happen to represent. In-depth interviews are often used in place of focus groups when having a group of people with similar characteristics together for the purpose of stimulating a conversation on a specific topic is unnecessary.

Ethnography

Ethnography is a genre of writing that uses fieldwork to provide a descriptive study of human societies. Ethnography presents the results of a holistic research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. The genre has both formal and historical connections to travel writing and colonial office reports. View-Finders incorporates various research techniques, such as combining focus groups and ethnography research into the same study in order to be able to link what people say to what they actually do.

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