Why we must augment focus groups

Duncan Stephen
Friday 18 April 2014

UX myth #21: People can tell you what they want

I have written and spoken before about the fact that we cannot always take users’ word for it when they tell us what they want from a website. What people say they want is often not what they actually want. Data shows this repeatedly – and in many fields, not just web design.

In his TED Talk on spaghetti sauces, Malcolm Gladwell argues that the food industry made a big mistake asking people about their preferences and conducting focus groups. Gladwell says that “The mind knows not what the tongue wants. […] If I asked all of you, for example, in this room, what you want in a coffee, you know what you’d say? Every one of you would say ‘I want a dark, rich, hearty roast.’ It’s what people always say when you ask them what they want in a coffee. What do you like? Dark, rich, hearty roast! What percentage of you actually like a dark, rich, hearty roast? According to Howard, somewhere between 25 and 27 percent of you. Most of you like milky, weak coffee. But you will never, ever say to someone who asks you what you want — that ‘I want a milky, weak coffee.’”

That is not to say that holding focus groups is not a valid approach. But they should be designed carefully, you should be aware of their limitations, and you must augment it with analytics and user testing.

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