Focus groups are widely used within human factors, social sciences and market research. Whilst user-research methods may be
familiar to other disciplines, conventional design training has not, until recently, incorporated such activities. With the increased
awareness for the necessity to elicit user needs beyond the functional, design research is becoming more established. However, there
is a significant gap in training material for design research. This paper will review the scope of application of focus group techniques,
with particular emphasis on the suitability of focus groups for use by industrial/product designers, based on the current literature
and designer feedback from two case studies. r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.