The Handbook of Mobile Market Research: Tools and Techniques for Market Researchers

5 Mobile Forums and Online Focus Groups

INTRODUCTION

The previous chapter provided an overview of mobile qualitative market research, dividing the topics into four broad categories: participant research (where participants use their mobile devices to help gather research material), ‘on the shoulder’ research (using mobile technologies to see what the participants see), conventional uses (such as using mobile devices to communicate with research participants), and a category termed ‘connecting from mobile’. The two key approaches in the connecting from mobile category are mobile forums and online focus groups.

This chapter covers the ‘connecting from mobile’ category in more depth and focuses on approaches such as online forums, discussions, and focus groups. These approaches tend to have two things in common:

1. They are moderated by a researcher.
2. The participants are remote from both the moderator and each other – for example they are in different parts of the country, connecting to the research process via their mobile devices.

MIXED-MODE RESEARCH

Whilst some forums, discussions, and remote focus groups are purely mobile, the majority are mixed-mode, with some participants connecting via mobile devices and others connecting via PCs. The projects can also be mixed-mode in the sense that participants use a mobile device some of the time and a PC some of the time.

Mobile focus groups and online discussions can also be used in conjunction with other types of research, for example ...