Focus group design for teens

In the first half of 2017, our work has been largely defined by the two pilot phases in which we’ve been sharing Oxplore with specific groups and regions. When we haven’t been travelling to schools to meet with young people, we’ve been planning these visits and working out what feedback we most need to shape the development.

Gathering this feedback has been incredibly helpful – and taking the time to pilot Oxplore has been very worthwhile. We have run 12 focus groups with 162 young people, and each one of them has surprised us with their ability to grasp not only what we are trying to achieve, but how we can use the digital tools to achieve our aims. Their digital upbringing was particularly noticeable in our recent visits to the East Midlands where we were discussing UX, interface and technical features. They were clear on what they expected from a website – and many even bandied about terms like ‘OAuth’, ‘CAPTCHA’ and ‘hamburger menu’ like developers!

A challenging aspect of these visits has been coming up with activities that help us to gauge their true feelings in an engaging way while still getting the data we needed. We were clear that the traditional focus group format of sitting around talking was not going to work for our groups – we needed something to keep their attention. We merged our need for qualitative feedback with sessions designed to be both reflective and interactive.  To gauge their preferred other websites, they voted in ‘Web Awards’ which not only asked them to reflect on the features of the sites they most like to frequent, but gave us evidence of user interfaces we might seek to emulate. To help us prioritise the development of new features, they spent ‘cash’ (ahem, stickers) on the features stuck up around the room. To help us refine the scope of those features, they looked at site designs and answered prompts about the process of registration, commenting and more.

While collating the outcome of these activities and more, we’ve also been reflecting in the team and with our developers how simply letting the young people loose with a tablet or PC in a computer room is in itself an excellent barometer of how well the site achieves its aims. In many cases we struggled to get the young people off of the site and onto the tasks. In a few schools they even used the Inspect Element function to view the CSS and temporarily edit the site to what they thought it should look like… (more Big Questions about footballers, apparently).

With technical development now back underway, our next task is to ensure that we make the very best of all this input.

What we learned from teenagers

This week we held the last of our consultation sessions with the group of 11-16 year olds at the Into University centre. As we move away from the conceptual and into the technical side of development, this seems like a good time to reflect on exactly how 14 rowdy young people have shaped our ideas.

The content we are collating is structured around questions. Most of these were voted for by the young people – they were rated highly as sparking their curiosity. Some of the questions we came up with and that we thought were interesting were given a resounding thumbs down from the group. We’re not pursuing them. Even more pleasing – questions that the group came up with together will feature on the site for launch. Their suggestions in this area were particularly insightful and challenging.

The notion of wanting to have a say came across loud and clear from all the sessions. At times the debate of the suggested content had to be curbed to get back to the task at hand! To harness this enthusiasm, forming and sharing opinions is key to our concept – so our users can feel a part of the debate. The notion of reward and gamification (through achievement badges and/or levels) proved a popular idea too so that will be a part of the user experience. And, while we didn’t end up going with one of the names they suggested, the name we’ve chosen was overwhelmingly their first choice name from our list of suggestions.

We obviously hope to stimulate and engage all of our users when the site launches. However,if we can meet the high expectations of our first consultative group and do justice to their ideas we are on to a winner.

Some of the Year 11 girls debating debating

Checking and balancing

Every project needs a place to sense check. We’re at the stage with the digital outreach portal that many, many decisions that will shape the portal need to be made swiftly. In the next few weeks we’ll be making further steps forward in our plans for content, branding, visual identity, site design and more. With so much happening at once, we’re lucky to be able to sense check ideas and learn from the potential portal users that make up our consultative group.

As we blogged after our first group, we’ve brought together a group of 14 young people with the help of Into University’s centre in Blackbird Leys in Oxford. As the weeks go on, we remain delighted with our young people’s enthusiasm. They’ve picked up our brief and needs quickly, and they’re certainly informing our decision-making through a combination of debate, voting and individual written feedback.

Last week we asked them to consider the pros and cons of ‘gamification’ of the site. They told us how they like to feel like they’re achieving things and a part of a bigger community, but there were some that were not convinced by some attempts to engage them. They also told us what they liked in terms of ‘look and feel’. It isn’t surprising that ‘digital native’ young people have some very particular thoughts about the style of the digital resources they interact with. They are also helping with the ongoing task of choosing a name for the portal.

This week they worked in smaller groups and were able to interact with wireframes of some concepts. For the first time, I think they were able to see how their ideas have already been listened to, and they were able to see something tangible. They were asked what they liked and didn’t like about each design.

Some of the things that they liked included some of the innovative interface features (more to be revealed soon) and the ability to see what is newest on the site. Interestingly, they preferred scrolling down to scrolling across a carousel. Not only is their feedback detailed and specific, but it is clear that our group take their responsibility seriously. Discussion was considered throughout, and most groups worked without even taking a break between designs!

Thumbs up for scrolling down.

Meet the users

How do you know what young people think about learning, exploring and developing a portal for them? Ask them.

Yesterday we held our first consultative group session with eleven young people based in the Oxford area. Our hosts were the Into University centre in Oxford who are used to working closely with young people. The individuals in our group have been specially recruited as representative of future users of the digital outreach portal. We’ll be meeting with our Oxford consultative group weekly over the next six weeks.

The purpose of the consultative group is to receive ongoing feedback from our core audience as the digital outreach portal develops. We will ask their opinion on everything from content and design to navigation and naming. We know that young people can be a challenging audience to reach, and particularly with a first of its kind project like ours. This is why we’re going out to meet them already – we want them involved in its development. What’s more, we know young people use the internet and engage with digital technology in a way that is completely different from us older folk.

The primary focus of the first consultative group was to get to know our participants better, in particular the way they like to think and the kinds of questions they find most interesting. Just as importantly we’re interested in what devices they use and what they use them for. Participants were asked to bring to the session the device they most commonly use to access the internet. Unsurprisingly all of our young people brought their smartphones with them, with one even bringing a tablet too. Guess that supports our view for mobile first design!

One key take-out from yesterday’s session was simplicity and ease of use, rather than design, were key criteria identified by young people for the site. This will surely impact on the site navigation and look/feel. Another key issue is the potential challenges of accessing the site using mobile data as opposed to Wi-Fi – especially if you don’t have lots of data on your phone contract.

Overall we’re thrilled with our first consultative group and are looking forward to continuing to work with such brilliant, thoughtful and engaged young people – we’ve got a great bunch!