As a result of COVID-19 working patterns have dramatically shifted for many people across the UK, and indeed the world, with a greater number of people now working remotely. Working remotely has meant the need to embrace online meetings and all the associated supporting tools. COVID-19 has also meant that qualitative fieldwork has moved quickly to being predominantly run online.

Online qualitative research has been in place and successfully run for a while, but this new environment has meant we need to refine the design of approaches to adopt and maximise the available tools.

There are some fantastic approaches and tools out there to ensure the effective design and delivery of powerful online qualitative research.   

The challenge of running online focus groups

The main challenge of an online environment is ensuring interaction and engagement amongst the group. A traditional approach allows people to meet face to face and have both verbal and non-verbal interaction providing a dynamic and more creative environment for building rapport and discussion. In an online group the dynamic is of course more distant, and the moderator needs to work harder to create the interaction and build rapport between the group. Over the course of the last six months, we have embraced the opportunity to evolve the way we run online focus groups and wanted to share some of the steps that now underpin our approach, namely:

• Defining tight and focused objectives

• Thorough and effective recruitment

• Selecting the optimum platform

• Interactive and engaging techniques

Defining tight and focused objectives  

With any qualitative project it is key to have set of clear and defined objectives that the insight will address and answer. This is especially so in an online environment where the interaction between participants is more limited and time management even more important. The starting point is the design of the session structure and the discussion guide. Crucial to this are the following:

• A focused and realistic set of discussion areas to cover

• Getting to the heart of the discussion as quickly as possible and keeping the context and scene setting to the key and relevant areas

• Simple and jargon free language – ensure it is easy to understand and prompts discussion

• Breaking up the session with simple and easy to do tasks

• It can be powerful to use two moderators to drive engagement and get the most out of the session

• Use stimulus material where possible – the beauty of online platforms is the ability to easily show stimulus in a variety of engaging formats

Thorough and effective recruitment    

Recruitment is vital to the effective delivery of online focus groups. It is important to ensure you have not only the right profile of participants, but also the right nature – those comfortable with and willing to join in the discussion. In online groups we recommend 5-6 participants as opposed to the traditional 8-10. This is because it makes it easier for interaction and moves away from round table single answers from a larger group. For effective recruitment we take the following steps:

• In addition to reaching the right profile we also recruit using a series of attitudinal questions to ensure those attending fit a specific personality type i.e. divergent thinkers

• As part of the recruitment process, we check participants can access and are comfortable using the technology

• We speak with each participant to get a sense of how they will be in the group environment

• We ask all participants to log into the session at least five minutes early to ensure we start on time

Selecting the optimum platform   

There are several great online platforms available and we successfully use a range, depending on the project aims, including:

• Zoom

• Teams

• GoTo Meetings

• WhatsApp

• Skype

• Recollective

All these platforms offer the following benefits:

• The option to record the session

• Breakout chat rooms

• The ability for people to watch the session and post questions for the moderator live

• The facility to upload and share material

Often, we will have two moderators to ensure there is someone on had to manage questions from those watching as well as help to run the session.

Interactive and engaging techniques   

As mentioned in an online group environment it is important to build rapport and make the session as interactive as possible. We have found the following steps useful:

1. Asking participants to come to a group having completed a short and easy pre-task. They have begun to think about the session and feel confident in having something to say at the start of the discussion. At times we have organised a WhatsApp group prior to the session with a series of short questions or a task (i.e. buying an item online) and this has really helped in building rapport.

2. Ensuring that you use stimulus material effectively during the session. This is about what you use, when you use it and what it looks like. The aim being to help people understand and comprehend the detail as well as being engaging and provoking people to think about things differently. For example, in a recent series of group sessions, we sent everyone in the group the product we were testing and asked them to open it for the first time online – which provided a fantastic reaction in terms of both energy and discussion.

3. We often use voting tools at points in the discussion they provide a simple to use tool that allows the group to vote and answer specific round-up questions.

4. Online post it notes and whiteboards.

5. Break-out chats and sessions – where sub-groups will discuss an area and then present back to the wider group.

6. Follow-up tasks supported by WhatsApp.