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Qualitative research is no longer confined to traditional focus group facilities. When the needed respondents are geographically dispersed they can be engaged in discussions via telephone conferencing or Online chat room environments. Video conferencing can allow clients to view focus group discussions from their home offices or a local facility in "real time" just as though they were sitting behind the one way mirror. They can send material for respondents to view or have private discussions with the moderator. Finally, we are increasingly interviewing respondents in their homes or in retail outlets. By interviewing people where they actually buy or use products, we stimulate fuller and more accurate reports from respondents and allow researchers the opportunity to observe as well as ask questions.
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A major vendor of specialty products for Internet Service Providers (ISP) was in the process of developing a website specifically designed for this audience. Their goal was to not only provide thorough information on its products and services but also develop an informational site that would be updated continuously with industry information. While they recognized that their product information needed to be thorough, they wanted the information to be concise and well targeted to ISP managers. They were also concerned that it include the right level of technical information for this audience as well as industry information that was of particular interest to ISP's so they would visit the site often.
This project was ideal for online focus groups. ISP managers are widely dispersed geographically and very difficult to find for traditional focus group settings. In this project, ISP managers were recruited from all over the United States and directed to Burke's Online facility at specific times. Once there, these managers were first engaged in an overview discussion of their use of the Internet to obtain product and industry information to assist them in their jobs. Over the course of the interview they were directed to 3 different competitive websites to obtain information on specific products and to examine industry information provided by the site. After visiting each site they were asked to return to Burke's focus group site to discuss their experience and give their evaluation of the site. In each case, Burke's online moderator probed to identify content, qualities, and characteristics these ISP managers valued in each site. From these groups, website designers in this client organization were able to develop a highly targeted website for the ISP population.
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