I have long been confused about the way focus group facilities are usually furnished. Gray, office-y walls, bland furniture in varying shades of upscale, and of all things, a huge conference table. I can see some practical reasons for the conference table—maybe. But those reasons are far outweighed by the conversation challenges wrought by the presence of this big clunky piece of furniture. Feeling as I do (and please hold back your groans if you’ve heard me tell this story a hundred times), I have managed to limit my use of a conference table for groups to just once—when the table was bolted to the floor.

My arguments against conference tables are as follows. Please feel free to rebut.

• Participants who are accustomed to sitting at conference tables during their regular work day are likely to associate the research space with work and its attendant anxiety, boredom, hierarchy, and spin. Why should moderators put such unnecessary road blocks in their own way?
• Participants who are not accustomed to sitting at conference tables on a regular basis are likely to be intimidated and uncomfortable. Outside of work, my conference table experience is limited to lawyers’ offices. Not fun.
• Conference tables enable dominators to dominate and wallflowers to, er, wallflower. I have attended entire seminars on how to manage such folks, and each time, there was a great deal of talk about where they sit around the table. Dominators are still going to dominate, but if you just put chairs in a circle, you take away one of the symbolic points of power from which they hijack the conversation. 
• A colleague said once that she wouldn’t take away the conference table because it offers people protection when talking about difficult subjects. Difficult subjects are pretty much all we do.
  • If the topic is sensitive enough for them to need protection, it’s worth a full living room setup, complete with throw pillows to hug and afghans and blankets to wrap themselves in. People aren’t hiding then, they’re acting with props, and it tells me a lot.
  • The table cuts off body language from mid-chest down. I could tell you stories of specific moments when the way ankles got crossed, hips shifted, or feet bounced let me know a whole lot about how one of my folks was thinking and feeling. 
• Back room team members lose a lot of nonverbal information through the mirror already. Why deprive them of even more if I don’t have to? 
• You have a lot of stimulus? Put it on smaller tables around the room. It lets people move around a bit, and it lets you focus on one thing at a time.

Next time you do a study, consider ditching the table. Facilities will work with you, and arranging just chairs in a circle (with a few side tables and a coffee table if you can) plus clipboards to write on will give you a whole new perspective on the conversation and your participants.