In order to see which elements of our social networking application are most appealing we decided to use a qualitative method to investigate this. We considered interviews, focus groups, and surveys as potential ways we could get this feedback and analysed the strengths and weaknesses of each method in relation to the time frame, and the information we wish to collect.

Focus Groups [1,2]

Strengths 

• Exploring what different people have to say.
• Providing insights into the roots of complex behaviour and people’s motivations.

Weaknesses

• The moderator of the focus group can actually prove more disruptive than helpful when it comes to trying to draw opinions out of the participants.
• “polarization effect” – attitudes can become heightened and more extreme as the group discussion continues.
• Discussions can get sidelined if participants disagree strongly.

Surveys [3]

Strengths

• They are anonymous and neutral, potentially leading to more honesty.
• All of the data is collected automatically and can be analysed at a later date.
• Takes less time (in terms of direct time put towards the study).
• Can address lots of different demographics easily.

Weaknesses

• There’s a lack of engagement with the person answering the questions.
• There’s less scope to get more personalised information out of a survey, as whilst you can show different questions based on user answers, you can’t make subtle adaptions to the questions depending on how the answers are going.
• Takes more time (in terms of indirect time, of waiting for people to answer the questions).

Interviews [3, 4]

Strengths

• Qualitative interviews produce credible evidence
• It can be used to explore multiple different possibilities to answering a specific question, in addition to allowing for elaboration on certain points.

Weaknesses

• Interviews are neither as neutral or anonymous as surveys, meaning that people won’t necessarily answer as fully or honestly as they would in a more neutral surrounding where their answers could not be attributed back to them.
• There’s also a huge pressure to collect all the data needed during that interview period as otherwise that information could get lost or misrepresented when it comes to writing up the results.
• Can risk being interviewer led.

Conclusion
We wish to ask some very simple yes/no questions to find out if the problems that our social networking application attempts to address, are actually commonly occurring problems. We also wish to find out whether people find different elements of our social networking application appealing, and if so, how appealing. These characteristics seem to lend themselves best for a survey as we can ask direct yes/no questions and we aren’t looking for different interpretations or different ways to explore questions, we just want simple yes/no answers.

In addition we could run a survey cost free, and after the initial overhead of setting up the survey, it would take a lot less time to collect the data. It also allows us to target a wider demographic as we can share a survey with all of our Facebook friends, thus addressing people of different ages and professions.A survey also seems more likely to elicit participation as participants can fill in the survey at a time convenient to them, and we wouldn’t be asking for any personal information. Additionally, if we were to use the isurvey tool offered by soton, then that offers easy data analysis of results after the survey is completed.

Having taken all of these factors into consideration it seems like a survey is the most suitable for the questions we wish to ask, and the resources/time we have available.

References
[1]Sussman, S,. Burton, D., Dent, C.W., Stacy, A.W and Flay, B.R. Use of focus groups in developing an adolescent tobacco use cessation program: collective norm effects. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 1991. 
[2] Morgan, D.L and Krueger, R.A. When to use Focus Groups and Why. 1993.
[3] Kvale, S. Interviews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, 1996.
[4] Rubin, H.J and Rubin, I.S. Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Sage Publications, 2012.