How not to run a web design focus group

blah blah blah, originally uploaded by 1987porsche944.

This morning I went to a focus group run by a nonprofit organization. The ostensible purpose: to discuss what we thought about the design of its online database.

Blah. And I don't just mean blah blah blah, but blah, what a waste of time. The session was run by the consultant who not only designed the organization's current online product but the CD-ROM that preceded it. Talk about a vested interest! He maintained a tight control over the whole affair, channeling the discussion to get people to say that they wanted certain things he'd already prepared and then--ta da!--showing us he'd already prepared them.

It was marketing manipulation 101, and badly done to boot. Of course people in the focus group (well, except for yours truly) complimented the guy on what he showed us--any marketing psychologist will tell you that Americans tend to be polite when asked to criticize a creator face-to-face, which is why focus groups that actually want to get information that will help in product development leave the creators--e.g., the writer, designer, director, producer--out of the room.

The nonprofit folks were nice, and it seems they really were interested in getting useful feedback. What they actually paid for, however, was a consultant trying to build a case for his own work. And so we sat for almost two hours while he fished for approval.

But despite the nods to customizable collaboration and Web 2.0, here's what we got. Three-dimensional click-button bar graphs. Rudimentary integration of Census data in a thinly populated proprietary map. An interface that maintains strict centralized control over searchable categories. Are people really asking for this stuff?

What I saw this morning was a phenomenon all too common in nonprofit and web design circles. Someone feels behind the current market, moves the furniture around a little and tell themselves they've adapted to change. Except they haven't, and the result only underscores how little they understand the phenomena they are trying to emulate. If this morning's pitch was going to show us how the nonprofit was taking the next step from CD-ROM to dot-com to Web 2.0, the first step would have been to open up discussion beyond the talking points.