Ad Man
I’m going to take part in a focus group tonight. I’ve been a participant in a focus group before. (Four in fact: for Wired Magazine, Harry Potter merchandise, digital cameras, and Oxfam America.) If you ever get a chance to be in a focus group, do it. It’s fun. They give you food and pay you ($75-$200 in my experience) just to hear you talk about what you like or don’t like about stuff. I do that for free all the time anyway.
Tonight, however, I’m going to be behind the glass. We’re doing a website redesign for large accouting frim so we’re talking to a group of accounting executives about how they use online news and research tools. (Sounds thrilling, huh?)
I won’t be in the room with the “subjects.” I’ll be one of the people watching from behind the one-way mirror—taking notes and passing questions to the moderator. I’ve run web usability tests before but never a focus group.
Weird. How did I end up doing this kind of stuff?