[whatleydude]

Hi there,

A few months ago I was invited to attend a focus group in east london all
about the Nokia 6630... for which I they wanted to pay me £50! CASH!

"Yippee!" I thought, I get to spend 2hrs talking about my current favourite toy AND I'm going to paid for my troubles!
Excellent..

So yeah - It was great. There was me and 6 or 7 other people all from different walks off life who all used their phones in different ways.. (my favourite one being the florist who took pictures of new flowers at trade fairs and showed them to her supplier.. "I want that one" - lol) ..and we sat round in this room (more on that in a minute) giving our likes and dislikes. What was great about the phone what was terrible.. and so on and so forth. In what ways had we used the phone (aside from texts and calls) in the past week... ie: I'd downloaded streetmap onto my 6630 to help me get to the place where the group was being held.

The room we were in had a couple of cameras in it as well as a big mirror on one wall which we were told, behind which sat some very important people from Nokia! All very Big Brother-esque y'know?

I got a lot from it - I think Nokia did too.. it was nice to see that Nokia are interested in our opinions y'know?

Anyway - aside from wanting to share my story with my new Talk3G friends I also wanted to know if anyone else here had any experience of focus groups like this?
If so, who was it with?
What did you think?

..etc etc.

[Ben]

Well, I was pulled aside at Bluewater while darting in and out of phone shops and asked some questions about the experiences in the stores and the phone I was looking for. It was done on camera and gave me a chance to show off ;)

I had great pleasure in telling them how dire the mobile retail experience is (if you work in a store in Bluewater I might well be talking about you)!

A Nokia-specific focus group would be great though, if they snag you again make sure you tell them to get their browsers over here! ;)

[3g-g]

Why the need to sit behind mirrored glass?! You sure they weren't imgration or DSS looking for slack jawed yocals on the pull for a bit of tax free cash? ;)

You're right though, it's always good to see the big guns looking for feedback straight from the horses mouth so to speak. I'm sure if Nokia needed some more honest opinions the members here at Talk3G would be happy to assist. :)

Feel free to join Mr Nokia if you're reading!

[whatleydude]

Next time (if there is one) I'll make sure I mention you!

I remember telling them that I REALLY WANTED them to make/release a pop-port to aux cable so I could play my MP3s on my phone through my stereo system.

There was other stuff - but to me that was one of the more important things I just HAD to tell them!

:)

...oh and Ben? I'm more of a Lakeside man myself but the staff can be equally as useful* on that side of the bridge I'm sure.




*read: 'useless'

[davidlove]

I went to a focus group a fortnight ago, this time on the 6680. The MO was exactly the same as whatleydude described - and yes I got £50, beer too.

I did slightly get the impression from the moderator that the Men Behind the Glass were looking for the good stuff and denying the niggles. That said, it was "full and frank".

There was little interest in video calling, and I was surprised by how important gaming had become. Almost everyone used the MP3 player and the majority had 512Mb cards installed. Most were on 3 or Orange.

Nokia should take heart - they were a loyal bunch, almost mesmerised by the N brand. I told them it was Symbian 60 I was buying into, so if the Koreans came out with something smaller/smarter/cheaper, I might be on my bike. Probably won't get invited again.

[whatleydude]

You got beer?!
I didn't get beer.
Boo.


:)

Moving on..

...Where abouts did you have to go for it mate?
Did they call you up or email you or did you go to them?
Have you been on anything like it before?
You mentioned the N Series ( i think ) did you get to see them?

Also - were you asked to use specific functions/software on the phone before you went?

I didn't mention this before - but they made sure we had Nokia Picutre Viewer and that Kodak software on our phones a week before we left. A lot of time was devoted to talking about those things.

Which might shed some light on why Nokia seems to have 'aquired' the Mobile Kodak brand thingy wotsit y'know?

[davidlove]

Venue was Shoreditch Studios. They got my name from the Club Nokia mailing list. Yes I went to a similar thing for LloydsTSB some time ago, not nearly as interesting though.

My N ref was to Nokia not N Series. No new stuff shown or discussed, but were wowed when I produced my BT keyboard. Could have taken a few orders that night.

They did call to pre-qualify, just asked what apps I used - email, MMS, camera, MP3 etc. Didn't mention the Kodak stuff.

But at the group they talked about the UI, menu structure etc., whether we moved/renamed menu items. Didn't seem like many people bothered, just stuck downloaded apps into the top level.

[Hands0n]

Yonks ago I used to get regularly invited to such focus groups for IT Network topics (the likes of 3Com etc). Same M.O. Cameras, mirrored wall, beer and canapes with the obligiatory £50 for yer troubles. I liked these a lot, always worth giving up the hour or so after a day's work to talk about stuff you liked to talk about..

I'm well impressed that they [Nokia] are doing it with their product, it shows a certain seriousness of intent and possibly a clue to watch them closely for keen product in the future?

[whatleydude]

Venue was Shoreditch Studios. They got my name from the Club Nokia mailing list....But at the group they talked about the UI, menu structure etc., whether we moved/renamed menu items. Didn't seem like many people bothered, just stuck downloaded apps into the top level.

Mate - that was same place I went to.
Wicked. Must be the same PR/Research company.. Now that you say it - the menu structure thing was discussed at mine too - those of us who'd moved items and those of us who hadn't..

No offence to any female members here but the divide between those who had organised their menus and those who didn't was exactly the same as the male/female mix. With the men being the movers and the women being the stickers.. so to speak.

But yeah - cool.

It'd be good to keep this thread going in case anyone gets invited along to an Nseries one anytime soon..

Cool beans.

[Ben]

It'd be good to keep this thread going in case anyone gets invited along to an Nseries one anytime soon..
Definitely, it'd be great to be able to voice our collective opinions in future - by sharing details of handset highs and lows here then those fortunate enough to be taking part in future events will have an arsenal of comments to take with them.

[davidlove]

You've reminded me that we were asked where we went for tech info on cell phone stuff. I couldn't believe that people still relied on magazines.

The other guinea pigs seemed really surprised that places like Talk3G existed. So URLs were exchanged - by Bluetooth, naturally.