Moderating in Halifax - why some facilities are not suitable for good research!

I moderated at a facility in Halifax a few weeks ago and I have never been there before - my usual, Nucleus, was booked. First omen of bad to come - taxi driver didn't know where the address was. It's that out of the way. Arriving, I saw it was located on a small industrial street of little consequence in a bland office building that looked like a typical bank building. Spanking new building located in a lowe end area, at the crossroads of some highways and thoroughfares. You would have to know it was there to find it.

For such a new facility, they really skimped on the equipment - in an ok sized room they had an older style 17 inch TV and a no-name cheap DVD player that didn't work most of the time, set high on an industrial AV stand. Like - no clue about how people typically view TV content, and a very un-compelling experience/environment in which to test ads.

But the major problem was the respondents. Now, a good moderator can get great stuff from just about any group. Not every group is comprised of "A" type, highly articulate and highly aware respondents - if they are, the recruiting firm is just sending pros. Humanity is not made up of only those type of respondents - and a good researcher wants a real representation of the consumer market. The problem is that an out of the way, poorly accessible focus group location creates it's own specific biases - first, only people who can get there, only people with cars, perhaps a tilt towards people who live within reasonable proximity - and since the area was lind of low end commercial, not everyone will even want to go into the area at night.

Lesson learned. Facilities in out of the way, off the mainstream locations have built in biases that limit or even eliminate their usefulness for qualitative research. And facilities need to have up to date AV equipment that allows for a viewing experience as close as possible to the typical home experience.

In Halifax, there's some good ones, and one that's not.