Concept testing was incredibly insightful. We held our concept testing session with 7 volunteers in a classroom in the business school on the undergraduate side. We first discussed healthy lifestyles and living. That discussion included a certain amount of dialogue amongst the members. Finally, we presented them with two interfaces to evaluate: a mockup of an application that organizes the initiatives we want to include in our living experience and a website that listed our building features and amenities. We gave them a few minutes to capture feedback on the feedback grid, and walked through each portion systematically, taking care to discuss their concerns thoroughly. My role was to moderate the discussion, and that became quite interesting during this part of the process.
What did we learn from concept testing?
Outcomes
Comments flew across the room when we revealed the features and amenities of the building. Many important questions were asked about the experience related to this building and using the features. Some of them are paraphrased below:
How can you ensure that the chore-sharing application will be secure, and my belongings won’t be stolen by my neighbor?
Would it compromise my security to let people know that I am going to be at a certain location at a certain time because of the walk-to-work program?
As a user, I would be displeased if I have to pay a large premium for the upkeep of every single feature. Is there any way I can pay for only the services that I use?
My experience has shown me that communal kitchens are often dirty and unkempt. Would there be a system to minimize that?
These were all great questions, and helped to highlight some of the main priorities of our focus group. Through discussion and dialogue, a few general themes arose.
Key Takeaways/Suggestions
More management presence
A lot of the “security” issues that were brought up seemed like they could be addressed by increased management presence. For example, the chore-sharing application should be organized and centrally distributed by the building. That way, there is a third party that can be responsible for items of clothing to insure against theft. In addition, the walk-to-work program can be scheduled by the building and participant identification can be kept anonymous while stirring support to walk to work. This would serve to increase user participation while maintaining privacy.
Service packages
A lot of the users really liked some of the initiatives, but were concerned about the cost. There was almost immediate agreement in the room that users should ideally be able to use some, but not all, of the services. If there was a way to subscribe to a subset of the services, that would be better for the users.
Increased marketing tactics
Although we tried our best to keep the discussion away from the aesthetics of marketing a new idea, it was brought up several times. To at least hear their concern, I allowed a few minutes of discussion on the topic. The general takeaway is that the younger generation of renters would be more attracted to a “sleek” design in the likeness of new-age technology giant marketing visuals, such as those of Apple.
What did I learn from moderating the focus group?
Be prepared to answer questions
As much as I needed to know about their ideas, I realized that I needed to answer questions that our group had about the product. Without a good understanding of the product, they cannot give well-constructed feedback. But it goes beyond the product as well. One member asked whether new residents would have to fill out an application to prove if they are part of the target market. This is a great question, as it reflects the need to explain the purpose and definition of a target market. While this is considered relatively simple background info, it is essential to ensure that group members know about marketing and business terms so that they can address the larger questions at hand. That question exemplified the notion that moderators must be willing and able to explain basic concepts that are outside the technicalities of the product.
Allow for tangents
When several strangers are handed a novel product, it is extremely simple for them to get lost in the details. Although I gave a fair warning about the use of the website and its purpose to only highlight the part of the experience on which we wish to receive feedback, there were some tangential comments nonetheless. As mentioned earlier, I tried my best to quell the debate on this part. However, after marketing was mentioned repeatedly, I decided it might be useful to hear their thoughts on how the product should be marketed. Although it is not our chief concern, it does benefit our concept to know how best to deliver a great experience.
Push their thinking
I know that it was important for me to ask questions that were open-ended to avoid yes/no responses. But sometimes open-ended questions can be tricky, as nobody wants to willingly share. I found that a good strategy was to bring up a comment that someone else had said earlier, and ask someone else to bounce off of that idea. For example, I recall asking something along the lines of, “So what do you think about that [program]?” and nobody said anything. I followed up by pointing to Jake and recalling his comment on security. “Does anyone have any thoughts on security, or see another issue that may be related to that?” That question helped bring up some other ideas on logistics, and we could move from there.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a great experience to run focus groups and gain feedback on our prototype. I learned a lot about user experiences, evaluation, and moderation. It will be exciting to collect this data and compile it for a presentation.