I carried out two focus groups during the process of my project. The first was a very informal discussion between three people who knew each other previously as I thought this would create a more relaxed atmosphere and might encourage them to be more open with their thoughts.

At the early stages I was interested in finding out differing opinions on fear and anxiety in general. I provided open-ended questions to prompt discussion, which worked well. The questions I used here were repeated in my cultural probes because they seemed to be successful and lead to a clearer understanding of the group’s perception of fear and anxiety. Although the conversation did meander away from the questions at times, this actually helped because it sparked off other questions that were interesting to investigate.

The questions were:
1. Have you ever had an anxiety or fear that stopped you from doing something? (Explain/discuss)
2. Explain your physical and emotional reactions to your own anxiety.
3. Do you think it’s important to express your anxiety or fear verbally?
4. Have you considered that other people may share your fear?
5. Do you speak about your anxieties with other people?
6. Do you think that environment is a large factor in provoking anxiety and fear?

The second focus group was a more direct questioning of different spaces and their effects on people and also communication in different kinds of environments (public and private). These questions arose because of my interest in certain spaces provoking anxiety.

I felt that this was very worthwhile because there were aspects of my previous studies that left specific questions to be answered. The clearest outcome of the discussion was that people were the main factor affecting anxiety.  This video is of the second focus group.