Digital Health Co-Design
Focus Group
Focus Group
A focus group is a guided group discussion used to gather insights into participants’ experiences, attitudes, and preferences. In co-design studies, focus groups can support the Discover phase by identifying user needs and challenges, and the Deliver phase by evaluating and refining prototypes or solutions.
Application Example
In a study designing a user-centred mHealth app to support parents in childhood weight management, researchers employed focus groups at multiple stages of the development process.
Discover Phase
In the early stage, focus groups with parents and family weight management case workers were conducted to understand the target behaviour and user preferences. Participants discussed barriers and facilitators to parents’ capability, opportunity, and motivation in enacting the target behaviour and explored parents’ preferences for app features. Focus groups in the Discover Phase played a critical role in problem framing and defining design priorities.
Deliver Phase
Later in the development process, additional focus groups were organised to pilot and evaluate potential app features. Parents reviewed interactive mock-ups and provided feedback on aesthetics, convenience, gamification, and usability. This feedback guided refinements such as clearer navigation, time-saving functions, and engaging game-like elements. In this way, focus groups in the Deliver Phase served to assess the acceptability of design solutions and generate actionable improvements for the final prototype. (Curtis et al., 2015)