Focus groups are a somewhat informal technique that can help us assess user needs and feelings before interface design. In a focus group, we bring together anywhere from five to nine users to discuss issues and concerns about the features. The group typically lasts about two hours and is run by a moderator who maintains the group's focus.

Focus groups often bring out users' spontaneous reactions and ideas and let us  observe  group dynamics and organizational issues. We can also ask people to discuss how they perform activities that span many days or weeks: something that is expensive to observe directly. However, they can only assess what users say they do and not the way users actually operate a system. Since there are often major differences between what people say and what they do, direct observation of one user at a time always needs to be done to supplement focus groups.