The following tips will help both you and the transcriber make sense of your recording later down the track:

• Try not to interrupt or talk over your participants. This includes saying things like "uh huh" - it’s amazing how much these asides drown out what the participant is saying.
• Laughter is particularly bad at distorting what people are saying. Asking participants not to laugh is hardly a good idea, but consider waiting until laughter has subsided before asking your next question.
• If possible, encourage speakers to make some verbal reference to things they may be indicating visually (or make this reference yourself).
• If references to people, places, websites, organisations etc. are important, keep in mind that the transcriber may not know or be able to easily distinguish these. Unless you’re sure of the term/spelling yourself, ask for these to be repeated or even spelt out.
• While it helps build rapport to have food and drink present, please be aware that eating and drinking while talking is a sure fire way to drown out what someone is saying.

Specific Advice for Focus Groups

If you wish a transcriber to be able to distinguish between speakers or identify particular voices in a focus group, please keep the following in mind:

• Spend at least one minute per person at the beginning of the recording getting participants to introduce themselves. If anonymity is an issue ask them to either “make up” information about themselves, or even talk about their favourite movie or book. The idea is to let them talk for long enough so that the transcriber can pick up the distinguishing characteristics of their voice.
• It’s a lot harder in a focus group to ensure that everyone is picked up by the recording device. Once participants have introduced themselves, you may like to stop the recording and briefly replay it to check that everyone can be adequately heard. This can be a tricky thing to implement though as many people don’t like to hear themselves on tape.
• If possible, refer to participants by name throughout the discussion and/or ask them to refer to themselves by name as often as they can.
• Sometimes a map of where participants are sitting in the group can be useful for the transcriber as transcription software can play participants back on different “channels” depending on their location (note that this depends on the recording device and transcription software used). A map is only useful if people have introduced themselves at the beginning of the recording of course.
• There’s a much greater likelihood in a focus group of people talking over top of each other, particularly if participants are familiar with each other. At the beginning of the discussion, please encourage people to speak one at a time. If things become “unruly” don’t be afraid to stop the discussion and remind everyone that this is important. If necessary, point out that some poor person has to transcribe the file and that people speaking all at once will make this extremely difficult!