How do you interpret focus group data?

Treating a focus group recording as data is one of the first pitfalls you make. These people are individuals, with real life experience and thoughts, emotions and opinions to share. Treat them as such, look under the bonnet of what motivates their responses and you’ll get to the rich seam of insight… way beyond a metric point? Interested in data? Do another method.

I believe qualitative analysis should also take a little bit of time to think about the things that the participants don't talk about. For example, asking questions like "What could they have talked about but didn't?". Their silences may tell you something that you will never find in any transcript or analysis. Obviously, silence is tricky to both identify and interpret. Ideally, any silences are best explored during the fieldwork but this isn't always possible. However, I believe there are often opportunities for your client in the things they overlook and don't talk about. So always be on the lookout for what's missing!

>understand WHY behind the responses > Interaction between the participants to be focused and measured > paying attention to nonverbal cues > examining consistencies & inconsistencies between patterns & groups > quantify the sentiments with value purpose created > triangulate with other data perspectives

It is always essential to have another pair of eyes with you. A moderator is not enough, nor are the recordings and transcriptions. A human assistant focused on the participant's reactions and body language can help by taking notes about what they see at the moment, which could pass unnoticed by the moderator.

Creating and using a framework can be helpful to identify trends, as well as organize everything you heard. Within the framework you build consider including categories like emotions or feelings, as well as the objectives broken down further. This makes it easier to see the commonalities as well as keeping you focused on the objectives. You can use this framework for building a report, as well as brainstorming recommendations and action items.

I've actually always found focus groups in themselves are most useful to compliment another surveying tool ... for example prior to constructing a questionnaire (In order to get a better understanding of what aspects to survey in the first place) ... other times after collecting questionnaire answers ... when replies are a bit vague or non pulled to definite sides, a focus group may help out in interpreting how the mind & psyche of the target group works while answering the questions ... but focus groups to be used alone are not much reliable tbh ...

There is a mistake here. Validity and reliability are terms that apply to quantitative research. When we are conducting focus groups, every comment and story matters. You are not looking for representation; you are looking for an exploration of your customers/market.

Focus groups are so helpful for the human emotion and angle of the problem. I would first do a quantitative research to identify the patterns and trends and use focus groups to truly listen to the key audience. This will solidify the qualitative research and add the human layer. Quantitative first, as quantifying the focus group data can be very tricky and can still have some gaps.

After a good group respondents feel that they have discovered thoughts and feelings they didn’t realise they had. Pay attention to the moments and nature of silences, pay attention to energies, pay attention to tonality… content is only one part of the process. And because this is so, before you start to codify and organise take time to ruminate on your own gut feelings.

This is an extra note around writing the report. I really like having the videos or tapes on while I'm writing. I don't know how many others do this, but I find it helps me stay in the mindset of the participants, and just keeps me focused.