Planning: Qualitative Data

Templates
(Focus Group)

In order to get a clear view of the direction I was going to take my magazine in I decided I needed people's opinion on the templates, then I could take on all their views and interpret it into my magazines constructions. I asked about 10 people who were more likely to be my audience in real life to pick which templates they liked and then point out what they did or didn't like and why.

I first noticed that half of the focus group liked my templates in blue and the other half in red. Therefore I thought since both colour have connotations which I would like to represented within my magazine, that I should maybe just integrate both, which would result in my magazine having a four colour, colour scheme: white, black (the obvious due to the copy, background and masthead/titles throughout the pages) blue and red.

For the first page, the majority of my focus group chose the final template as they thought it wasn't as 'busy' as the last two and was the one template that they could envision being an actual magazine on shelves. Most didn't like the first and second template as they thought the banner which advertised an additional incentive was 'tacky' lacking 'professionalism' and they can see it as a yellow box across an amateur page. They preferred the circular banner as it was more subtle and still able to inform the audience on any offers. Almost all of the ten people in the focus group mentioned that they thought the girl bands name should be bigger and stand out on the page.

When choosing which contents template they liked, most were indecisive, informing me that they like aspects of each contents page rather than an entire one. The group preferred the title for the contents page on the top left corner of the page and all the contents (e.g. feature stories, latest news etc) on the left hand side as well. They liked the idea of the past/future magazines in the contents page but suggested that it should be placed either by the editors' letter or the subscription box as it is relevant to both. They thought the images weren't as organised as they could be which resulted in me deciding instead of having all the images on my contents page in long shots that I instead I have medium long shots or medium shots of my models.

For the double page spread 7 out of the 10 people in my focus group preferred the final two templates compared to the others. They liked the fact that there was an image of the whole group and then each member was able to be individually represented. However, some also liked the third and fourth template as one of the images looked as if it was separating the title and the sub-title as well as linking the two pages by being in the middle. I didn't like this one as I think that the page may cut down her face. They commented on all the usual conventions mentioning that they liked the quote in between the articles copy and the large letter which pinpointed where the article started. They also didn't think I should add information of another band as it would derive attention from the band my article is based on.

Taking all of this into account my final pages should share a resemblance of these: