Planning: Qualitative Data

After gathering my survey results and determining my target audience, I got together a focus group of 8 people from my target demographic to show them my templates and rough designs. Based on their feedback I will make changes to my templates whilst constructing my final magazine.

I wanted to learn what my target demographic thought about my templates so I asked them a series of questions.

What is your favourite feature of these magazine pages?   
Out of the 8 people, 6 said that their favourite feature was the neatness in general and how sleek the magazine looked. The other 2 people disagreed, saying that their favourite feature was the colour schemes and how well each of the colours went together.

If you could change anything about these pages, the cover in particular, what would you change?

Although the most popular feature of my pages was the neatness, all of the focus group said more features had to be added to every page, saying that the pages looked slightly bare and empty. 

Which colour scheme appeals to you the most?

4 out of 8 people said the green based colour scheme was their favourite. 2 said that the blue one was their favourite and 2 people said that the red colour scheme was their favourite. This tells me I should make the main colour scheme should be green based (which I had planned on anyway) but it also says I should feature blue and red at points throughout the magazine.

Would you buy this magazine?

All 8 people said they would purchase this magazine, giving different reasons. Most said that it does not look like a magazine for the music genres I have intended it to be for, but they said they would still buy it. 

After asking general questions about the templates as a whole, I wanted to get into more detail with each page. 

What is your favourite feature about each page?

Front Cover: 8 out of 8 people said they liked how I had set out the "featured stories" section on the red colour scheme front cover.

Contents: 7 out of 8 people said they liked the incorporation of images on all of the contents page templates.

Double Page Spread: 8 out of 8 people said that they liked how I have interwoven the image and the article on all of the double page spread templates.

I then asked them all to pick out their favourite front page, contents and double page spread template. These were the three selected: 

I should keep my final magazine as close to these templates as possible if I wish to gain support from my target demographic.