Focus Groups Are No Longer The Ideational Tool of Choice For New Product Design & Development.

We’ve all been aware of the basic limitations of traditional focus groups. This is especially true for any of us who have ever worked in the new product design or development space.

A recent keynote address given by Malcolm Gladwell cited the story of the Aeron Chair. He noted how most focus group respondents didn’t respond well to the Aeron chair, and, of course, it made sense that they didn’t like it. The Aeron was nothing they had ever seen or known before. But that was the basic platform on which the chair had been conceived and designed – the fact that no one had ever seen it – it was unlike any chair ever before seen. It was an item that consumers never could have known they wanted. And that was the very reason the chair was doomed in focus groups - because respondents didn’t have the language or prior perspective or disposition to articulate their feelings and response to anything remotely like it. A team had been put together to come up with a transformative office chair. So, the designers went back to their drawing boards and literally forgot everything they thought they knew about chairs, and then decided to start from scratch. They realized that one of the problems with chairs was that chairs had a single back and your back, of course, is not one piece. So they made a chair that had a way to adjust the lower back.

Another problem with chairs is they're hot, i.e., they don’t breathe. So, a special fabric that could breathe was added into the design. And other ways to adjust the chair were included, and finally, a prototype was developed. Herman Miller, the chair’s creator, did what companies do when a new idea is developed, it went out and conducted market research. And in the chair business, two kinds of market research are usually implemented: a) The chair was evaluated among prospective buyers for aesthetics using a scale of zero to 10. Then they also tested for comfort using the same scale. After testing, the comfort scores were pretty good, but the aesthetic scores were negative, in fact, some of the lowest scores ever. Usually, when prospective buyers do not like the prototype too well, it goes back to the drawing board, and if the target customer hates it, then it's suicide.

But Herman Miller decided to move forward nevertheless. Over the course of the next two years, it became understood that this chair that everyone said that they hated, well, as it turned out, they didn't really hate it. Sales began to rise steadily. People started to say, "Well, actually it is comfortable and I think it's kind of cool-looking." Suddenly this chair, called the Aeron chair, became a cultural and commercial phenomenon and one of the greatest-selling chairs in the history of office chairs.

That's a story that tells us something very sobering about market research – and, in particular, the efficacy and usefulness of focus groups. Because the whole point of focus groups is to be able to help us LEARN what's going to work and what's not. If a focus group cannot do that, then what’s its raison d’etre?

WRISTS AND TRIANGLES AND THE ART OF TOPSPIN

Here’s why focus groups generally fail, and why we can do better.

Point No. One: There’s the problem relative to STORYTELLING. When you are measuring first impressions or snap judgments, we're not prying into the reasons why we make that snap judgment. It's an absolutely bedrock notion in psychology and cognitive psychology that somehow miraculously escapes the understanding of anyone in advertising.

There is an extraordinary faculty that many art experts have in being able to tell instantly whether a given work of art is real or fake. Boom, it's real. Boom, it's fake. And they are invariably right. But the interesting thing about that is they cannot ever tell you why they think it's fake.

That's something fundamentally true of our first impressions and snap judgments. If we cannot have access to the machinery of our decision-making when it comes to first impressions, what happens when you ask people to give those?

This creates engines for seemingly plausible fictions that people will spin in an attempt to spin what is cognitively impossible. Tennis coach Vic Braden spent years hanging out with tennis players asking how they play tennis. He said, "I've been asking pros about the topspin forehand for years, and they all say the same thing. They say, `When I hit a topspin forehand at the moment of impact with the ball, I roll my wrist to generate topspin.'"

He began to tape them and discovered that not a single one of them ever rolled their wrist on impact with the ball. They rolled their wrists after they hit the ball as part of their follow through. And in fact if you did what they said, you would sprain your wrist. What they did was come up with an extremely plausible story: They said, with utter certainty, "We roll our wrists." Of what use is that information? Worse than useless, dangerous.

Point No. Two: TRIANGULATION TESTING. You administer the Pepsi Challenge. Two glasses, Coke and Pepsi, in which respondents indicate which is which. And sure enough, consumers participating in the research can do it very well─ any group of consumers randomly selected will probably get that right 75%+ of the time. Then you tell respondents: "I'm going to change the test a bit, we're going to use three glasses. The third glass will have either Coke or Pepsi, but this time I'm going to make it easier on you. I only want to know which one is not like the other two."

• The success rate when you do a triangle test, three glasses, drops from 75-85% down to chance, or even lower, to one-third. Why are the respondents suddenly incapable of telling you which is Coke or Pepsi? By adding that third one, you turn what had been a total first impression into something that required thought, and the minute you ask someone to inject thought into their process, you change their preference. You destroy their ability to immediately know the difference between these two things in the real world.

Point No. Three: The act of asking someone to explain these things is not only psychologically difficult, not only impairs their judgment, but it biases them in favor of the conservative, in favor of the known over the unknown. In other words, too much rational response will dominate, omitting the richness of insight based on emotion, vivid imagery and the unconscious, each of which enhances design and development solutions in a more humanized, empathetic manner.

• It is hard for us to summon the language to explain why we like impressionism or complex jazz movements or anything buy Van Gogh or Picasso, but it is very easy for us to summon the language to explain why we like cats, dogs, and babies.
• Now think about the Aeron chair. Initial focus group respondents said they didn't like the chair, and of course they didn't. The chair was nothing they'd ever seen before, but that was the whole plan in designing the chair. That's what was special about it, and that's why this chair will make billions of dollars for Herman Miller, but it's also what doomed that chair in the focus group, because people didn't have the language.
• Market research, when observational or interpretative, is profoundly useful. But those are two critical things that require the intervention of the person conducting the research, the moderator. For focus groups to work well, the findings that are gathered need to be considered, and thought about – i.e., rationally and linearly processed and interpreted. Back in the 1950s, most of Madison Avenue employed Freudian psychoanalysts like Ernest Dichter, Herta Herzog, Pierre Martineau or Emmanuel Demby for this precise reason, and, sadly, none of this breakthrough kind of motivational research is being conducted these days, which represents a major gap in our MR Industry.

What has been driving the ongoing proliferation of reliance on focus-groups is the need for management to make every decision as methodical, considered, and certain as possible. However, it is this pragmatic rationality that belies and inhibits the creative process inherent in new product design and development.

So, are traditional focus groups compatible or not with the ideation process for new product design and development? It’s funny how often this question gets revisited. There always seems to be tension between the ‘gut feeling’ or ‘preferred innovation methods’ of an entrepreneur/business while gathering customer insights. Part of the issue is that market research, both focus groups and surveys, have become a pariah in many disciplines such as product, strategy and marketing. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, because market research hasn’t transitioned well in the digital world. What has eclipsed market research are new methods and tools for collecting customer inputs and insights. Some of the best products and business success stories in recent years claim not to have relied upon market research (in the traditional sense), but have laid claim to collecting and using customer insights.

Steve Jobs claimed never to have conducted market research or hired research consultants. Eric Ries, author of one of the most influential books of the digital age, ‘The Lean Startup’, is also dismissive of market research. In his book he says: If Zappos had relied on existing market research or conducted a survey, it could have asked what customers thought they wanted. By building a product instead, albeit a simple one, the company learned much more.

For most people working at startups or building products, the “build, test, learn” methodology is the extremely popular way to collect these customer insights. As are design sprints, user testing, ethnographic research and, of course, behavioral data analytics.

SO, WHAT NOW FOR INNOVATION AND MARKET RESEARCH?

If you strip market research down to its reducible core, it is about understanding markets and customers to help make better decisions. It’s about adding the right input into the innovation process. The reason market research is dismissed as an innovation tool is because it’s often conducted so poorly. A good example of this is directly asking customers about their needs, requirements and wants for a new product or service. They do not know, and if they did know, they do not know consciously, so they could not articulate as well as we would want. This is not the customers’ area of expertise, hence why we employ expert designers, developers and strategists.

The contention is that, in advance of seeing and digesting new (even disruptive) new products, customers do not know really know, nor can they even articulate, what they want. They could never have foreseen the iPhone, let alone respond in terms of needs and requirements. Yet the iPhone is one of the most popular products of all time because it fulfills a lot of customer needs.

BUT IF ASKING PEOPLE WHAT THEIR NEEDS AND WANTS ARE IS THE WRONG APPROACH, THEN WHAT IS THE RIGHT APPROACH?

For a long time, we at WACS Insights & Strategy struggled to answer this question on behalf of our innovation clients. There are methods and practices we have used in the past, which indirectly tease out the painful parts of the customer experience. But the output is typically far too fluffy. Over the past five years, however, we have been applying a particular research protocol, a PERSPECTIVE, which adds process, structure and clarity to research approaches for innovation. We employ a framework that is deep-rooted in an understanding of the outcomes people are trying to achieve in life, by analyzing the jobs required to achieve them. Through identifying those important jobs people struggle with (aka JOBS TO BE DONE), opportunity gaps begin to present themselves. Using this approach is not about asking people what they want or need. Instead, it asks customers what they’re experts in:

• What jobs in their lives are hard to complete and are satisfactorily achieved?
• On which jobs do they place greatest importance - which jobs must get done?

The qualitative outputs which result are highly contextual. They provide specific inputs into ideation, product/service design and add robust evidence to include for product optimization, marketing strategy and business plans.

WERE REIS AND JOBS CORRECT?

Steve Jobs and Eric Ries were not being dismissive of customer insights and inputs. They were being critical of bad customer/market research from which the insights were developed, since MR often collects wrong or misleading inputs. Research that asks the customer what they want stifles creativity. It places a burden on the consumer to actually know what they want, and to articulate it well. Handing over a product spec taken from a focus group (or a survey) to a product team will probably lead to disaster: you end up with demotivated product designers and a final product that falls short. Customers don’t know what they want until you show them, give it to them, and let them see it in action. As Henry Ford famously said:

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.

Or as Diana Vreeland once said about disruptive innovation:

'Don't give them what they say they want, give them what they never knew they wanted'

Alternatively, hand over a set of prioritized and contextual problems that customers face. As a result, product designers and developers’ creativity will spark. Good market/customer research is about asking the right questions, providing the right stimuli and knitting the output into the processes and frameworks that are used to innovate. Data, and the insights derived from data, are the bastion of clarity. For example, if collected properly, ‘brainstormed’ data are unbiased, and they provide grounding and a center for stakeholders’ perspectives. To minimize stakeholder bias and avoid your innovation backfire, generate the most relevant data based on gaps and problems, then weave customer insights into the innovation process.

So, given the limitations of traditional focus group research, what techniques can be utilized to inject more in depth insight into our innovation initiatives? How can we conduct ideational research leading to insights and solutions that will not diminish the initiatives of product designers and developers?

Here is an array of ideation techniques that we’ve found to be more effective for new product design and development than traditional focus groups, since they address the aforementioned problems and limitations of traditional approaches and have consistently yielded some sensational concept insights and solutions:

1. SCAMPER

SCAMPER is an idea generation technique that utilizes action verbs as stimuli. It is a well-known kind of checklist developed by Bob Eberie that assists the person in coming up with ideas either for modifications that can be made on an existing product or for making a new product. SCAMPER is an acronym with each letter standing for an action verb which in turn stands for a prompt for creative ideas.

·    S – Substitute

·    C – Combine

·    A – Adapt

·    M – Modify

·    P – Put to another use

·    E – Eliminate

·    R – Reverse

2. BRAINSTORMING

This process involves engendering a huge number of solutions for a specific problem (idea) with emphasis being on the number of ideas. In the course of brainstorming, there is no assessment of ideas. So, people can speak out their ideas freely without fear of criticism. Even bizarre/strange ideas are accepted with open hands. In fact, the crazier the idea, the better. Taming down is easier than thinking up.

Frequently, ideas are blended to create one good idea as indicated by the slogan “1+1=3.” Brainstorming can be done both individually and in groups. The typical brainstorming group comprises six to ten people.

3. MINDMAPPING

Mindmapping is a graphical technique for imagining connections between various pieces of information or ideas. Each fact or idea is written down and then connected by curves or lines to its minor or major (previous or following) fact or idea, thus building a web of relationships. It was Tony Buzan, a UK researcher, who developed the technique “mind mapping” discussed in his book ‘Use your Head’ (1972). Mind mapping is utilized in brainstorming, project planning, problem solving and note taking. As is the case with other mapping methods, the intention behind brain mapping too is to capture attention and to gain and frame information to enable sharing of concepts and ideas.

To get started with mindmapping, the participant just has to write a key phrase or word in the middle of the page. Then, he must write anything else that comes to his mind on the very same page. After that, he must try to make connections as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

4. SYNECTICS

Synectics is a creative idea generation and problem solving technique that arouses thought processes that the subject may not be aware of. It is a manner of approaching problem-solving and creativity in a rational manner. The credit for coming up with the technique which had its beginning in the Arthur D. Little Invention Design Unit, goes to William J.J. Gordon and George M. Prince.

The Synectics study endeavored to investigate the creative process while it is in progress. According to J.J Gordon, three key assumptions are associated with Synectics research.

1. It is possible to describe and teach the creative process
2. Invention processes in sciences and the arts are analogous and triggered by the very same “psychic” processes
3. Group and individual creativity are analogous?

5. Storyboarding

Storyboarding has to do with developing a visual story to explain or explore. Storyboards can help creative people represent information they gained during research. Pictures, quotes from the user, and other pertinent information are fixed on cork board, or any comparable surface, to stand for a scenario and to assist with comprehending the relationships between various ideas.

6. Role playing

In the role playing technique, each participant can take on a personality or role different from his own. As the technique is fun, it can help people reduce their inhibitions and come out with unexpected ideas.

7. Attribute listing

Attribute listing is an analytical approach to recognize new forms of a system or product by identifying/recognizing areas of improvement. To figure out how to enhance a particular product, it is broken into parts, physical features of each component are noted, and all functions of each component are explained and studied to see whether any change or recombination would damage or improve the product.

8. Visualization and visual prompts

Visualization is about thinking of challenges visually so as to better comprehend the issue. It is a process of incubation and illumination where the participant takes a break from the problem at hand and concentrates on something wholly different while his mind subconsciously continues to work on the idea. This grows into a phase of illumination where the participant suddenly gets a diversity of solutions and he rapidly writes them down, thereby creating fresh parallel lines of thought.

Picture prompts help a lot when it comes to enabling one’s brain to establish connections. These prompts can help to surface emotions, feelings and intuitions. This makes them particularly useful for brainstorming solutions to innovative challenges involving people, and issues with a deep psychological or emotional root cause.

To get started with using picture prompts, the facilitator distributes a set of pre-selected images – each participant gets one. He also asks the participants to write down whatever ideas come to their mind when they look at the image in their possession. According to Bryan Mattimore (presently co-founder of The Growth Engine Company), the images should be visually interesting, portraying a multiplicity of subject matter and must depict people in lots of varied kinds of relationships and interactions with other people.

After this, participants pair off and use additional time, sharing and talking about the ideas they have come up with and brainstorming more solutions to the existing problem/challenge. Lastly, the various pairs present their ideas to the rest of the group.

Mattimore suggests tailoring the visuals to the character of the challenge the participants have to solve. So, if the challenge pertains to the manufacturing industry, you could consider having images of an industrial nature. However, you should definitely include some irrelevant or random images as well because it may be these kinds of images that trigger the most innovative solutions.

9. Morphological analysis

Morphological analysis has to do with recognizing the structural aspects of a problem and studying the relationships among them. For example: Imagine the problem is transporting an object from one place to another by way of a powered vehicle. The significant dimensions are: the kind of vehicle (cart, sling, bed, chair); the power source (internal-combustion engine, pressed air, electric motor); and the medium (air, hard surface, rails, rollers, oil, water). Thus, a cart-kind of vehicle moving over rough services with an internal-combustion engine to power it is the automobile. The expectation is that it would be possible to determine some novel combinations.

10. Forced relationships

It is an easy technique involving the joining of totally different ideas to come up with a fresh idea. Though the solution may not be strictly unique, it frequently results in an assortment of combinations that are often useful. A lot of products we see today are the output of forced relationships (such as a digital watch that also has a calculator, musical birthday cards and Swiss army knife). Most of these ideas may not be revolutionary discoveries but they are still advantageous products and usually have a prospective market in society. Robert Olson provided an example for forced analogy in his book ‘The Art of Creative Thinking.’ He compares different aspects of a corporate organization structure to the structure of a matchbox.

11. Daydreaming

Though mostly not met with approval, daydreaming is truly one of the most fundamental ways to trigger great ideas. The word “daydream” itself involuntarily triggers an uninhibited and playful thought process, incorporating the participant’s creativity and resourcefulness to play around with the present problem. It enables a person to establish an emotional connection with the problem, which is beneficial in terms of coming up with a wonderful idea. The focus of productive daydreaming is a particular goal irrespective of whether it seems to be an impractical task. Plenty of famous inventors have engaged in daydreaming in the past, thereby setting off ideas that contributed to life altering inventions. The airplane is the most notable example for this. If the Wright brothers had not let their imagination run wild thinking about flight, we would probably still be traveling by ferry.

12. Reverse thinking

As the term ‘reverse thinking’ itself suggests, instead of adopting the logical, normal manner of looking at a challenge, you reverse it and think about opposite ideas. For example: ‘how can I double my fan base?’ can change into ‘how do I make sure I have no fans at all?’ You may notice that the majority of participants would find it easier to produce ideas for the ‘negative challenge’ simply because it is much more fun. However, don’t spend too much time on the reverse idea-generation – about 10 to 15 wrong ideas is fine. After one session is over, you can either continue in the reverse idea atmosphere with a new challenge or else do the reversal once more to make it stronger. An example for the latter is “I am never going to update any of my social networks” changing into “I am going to always update all of my social networks.”

13. Questioning assumptions

The majority of industries have an orthodoxy – unspoken but deeply-held beliefs that everyone stands by for getting things done. Sadly, they fail to realize that by questioning assumptions at every step of service or product development, they can actually enable the birth of fresh possibilities and ideas.

Here’s how Mattimore suggests one go about questioning assumptions: The participants should start by settling on the framework for the creative challenge. After this, they should produce 20 to 30 assumptions (irrespective of whether they are true or false). The next step is to select several assumptions from the many generated, and utilize them as idea triggers and thought starters to engender fresh ideas.

14. Accidental genius

Accidental genius is a relatively new technique that utilizes writing to trigger the best ideas, content and insight.

15. Brainwriting

Brainwriting is easy. Instead of asking the participants to shout out ideas, they are told to pen down their ideas pertaining to a specific problem or question on sheets of paper, for a small number of minutes. After that, each participant can pass their ideas over to someone else. This someone else reads the ideas on the paper and adds some new ones. Following another few minutes, the individual participants are again made to pass their papers to someone else and so the process continues. After about 15 minutes, you or someone else can collect the sheets from them and post them for instant discussion.

16. Wishing

This technique can be begun by asking for the unattainable and then brainstorming ideas to make it or at least an approximation of it, a reality. Start by making the wishes tangible. There should be collaboration among the members of the team to produce 20 to 30 wishes pertaining to your business. Everyone’s imagination should be encouraged to run wild – the more bizarre the idea, the better. There should be no restrictions on thinking.

The next step is concentrating on a number of these unattainable wishes and utilizing them as creative stimuli to trigger ideas that are new but more practical. Mattimore suggests getting the team to challenge the problem from diverse perspectives (imagine how a person from another planet or from another industry or profession would view it) or reflect on it. This type of role playing assists with moving away from conventional thinking patterns to see fresh possibilities.

17. Socializing

If employees only hang around with colleagues and friends, they could find themselves in a thinking rut. Let them utilize all those LinkedIn connections to begin some fantastic conversations. Refreshing perspectives will assist with bringing out new thinking and probably, one or two lightning bolts. Socializing in the context of ideation can also be about talking to others on topics that have nothing whatsoever to do with the present problem.

18. Collaboration

As the term indicates, collaboration is about two or more people joining hands in working for a common goal. Designers frequently work in groups and engage in collaborative creation in the course of the whole creative process.

Some of the more recently developed ideational techniques we’re now experimenting with for new product design and development are Right Braining, Provocative Actions, Break & Build, Pessimist vs. Optimist and Randomness. In future articles, I’ll be reporting on their relative utility and implications for ideational application in the new product design and development space.