By Candace Northey-Purton, Director Client Success
Updated by: Peace Echeomuha, Marketing Specialist
Writing a guide for an online bulletin board discussion is quite a bit different than writing for a real time face-to-face or video group or interview. In a real time discussion, the moderator needs only that – a guide – to prompt ideas for discussion. They can 'jump around' in conversation flow, read facial expressions, and improvise on the fly.
In an online, asynchronous discussion, the guide itself needs to be an actual script, with a more deliberate approach in structure and clarity. Here, we’ll help you construct a discussion guide that will yield rich, engaging, complete answers from your participants. To do that, we’ve broken the process into two phases: first, PLAN. Then, WRITE. Let’s get started!
A bulletin board focus group is a discussion — but it's hard for a discussion to feel natural when it reads like a rapid-fire Q&A drill. Infuse personality into your guide just as you would in a face-to-face group. The tone may vary (sometimes more formal, other times casual) depending on your audience, but always write conversationally to disarm respondents and encourage them to open up.
Face-to-face discussions let you jump around freely. In a bulletin board, you need to plan how people will respond to initial questions so that naturally emerging topics appear in the right sequence. Poor sequencing creates apparent redundancy, which frustrates and fatigues participants. Consider where natural breaks occur in your subject matter so you can "chunk" questions into daily assignments with seamless transitions from one day to the next.
This is no longer optional. Today's OBB (online bulletin board) participants are just as likely to be on a smartphone as a desktop, so design your questions and visual stimuli with a mobile-first mindset. Use short paragraphs, avoid dense walls of text, and test that any images, videos, or stimuli you embed display cleanly on small screens. Platforms now support voice responses, photo uploads, and short video clips directly from mobile devices — consider whether any of these richer formats would benefit your study.
Standard questions take an average of three minutes to complete. If participants are expected to log in for 30 minutes per day, plan for no more than 10–12 questions per day. Multi-part questions, diary-style prompts, photo or video uploads, and projective exercises all require more time. Simple yes/no or scale-based questions can be slightly more numerous, but always err on the side of asking less and getting more.
Participant drop-off is common after Day 1. Counter it with pacing, think of it as a bell curve:
Day 1: Slow and easy warm-ups, introductions, lifestyle and attitudinal questions that ease participants into the subject matter.
Day 2: The "meat" of the study; explore and dig deeply into the core topics.
Day 3: Taper off; clarification, wrap-up, and final thoughts.
For longer boards (4-5 days), maintain this gradual arc across the full duration.
One of the most valuable features of modern OBB platforms is the ability to require participants to submit their own response before seeing others'. This removes the "groupthink" dynamic that can skew in-person focus groups and yields genuinely independent responses. Decide upfront which questions should be "influenced" (participants see others' responses first) vs. "uninfluenced" (they respond blind).
The system allows you to set certain parameters on each question. Determine beforehand what type of limitations you want to put on the participant before you build your guide. Various settings to consider include:
AI-assisted moderation has become a practical option for certain OBB contexts. For straightforward concept tests, diary studies, or high-volume boards where rapid probing on initial responses would add value, AI tools can deliver follow-up prompts in real time — dramatically reducing the turnaround time on insight generation and capturing more contextual detail than delayed human moderation allows. However, for studies involving sensitive topics, nuanced brand strategy, or exploratory creative development, human moderation remains essential. AI works best when paired with an experienced human moderator who reviews and guides the overall process.
People like to know who they’re talking to, what they’ll be doing and why. They’re eager to find out what’s expected of them. To begin a group, the Moderator should state the purpose of the group and provide guidelines. This includes a personal introduction, purpose, timeline (i.e. when to log in and when to check back for follow-ups), instruction on entering responses, information on how the group is meant to proceed, and encouragement to be candid and honest. If you have complex instructions, consider providing a PDF that the respondent can print and refer to. Sample introduction text is provided at the end of this document.
It’s often best to present this introduction on the home page, outside of the actual discussion itself, so that it’s the first thing participants see when they log in. It also helps keep expectations top of mind, and makes it easy for respondents to navigate back to should they need to refresh themselves on anything.
It’s very common for those new to online groups to dive in head first and immediately launch into the subject matter – (“What do you think about the current state of health care coverage in the United States today?”) – but just as in face-to-face groups, people need some time to get acquainted and warm up. Be sure to include introductory questions that get the respondents talking about themselves, their basic demographics, and a bit about their lifestyle or general attitudes.
You can turn this into a projective exercise of sorts by having respondents fill out their Profile page and adding an avatar/photo of themselves, if you like. This will make it fun and engaging from the minute the respondents begin the discussion.
Participants don’t have the luxury of gaining any context from you other than by what they see on the screen. Make your board visually engaging. Use images wherever possible (both in the introduction and in question sets) to reinforce concepts, ideas or emotion. You can also convey tone and emphasis by using varying font sizes, colors and spacing in your text. Be careful not to write a “wall” of text – break it up with spacing so that it’s aesthetically pleasing to the viewer, and makes it manageable for them to absorb.
Unlike in a live group, you can't improvise wording on the fly or add clarifying language mid-session. Every question is presented in written form and must stand entirely on its own. If a question is ambiguous, participants will either guess at your intent (giving you poor data) or ask for clarification (wasting time and breaking the group's momentum). Before finalizing any question, ask yourself: Is it concise enough to read easily? And is it complete enough that no one will need to ask what you mean?
Use language that encourages reflection in order to elicit robust answers from respondents. While it’s not inappropriate to start your questioning in a direct manner (leading with Who, What, When, Where, Why or How), sometimes that phrasing is better suited for questions getting into detail, or asking specifics. If you’re
introducing a new topic or subject, start off with “softer” verbiage that gets the respondent thinking, just as you would in an in-person group. For instance:
First, I’d like to know a little bit about… Tell me about a time…
Think back to a time when you were…
I’d like to understand more about your experience with… Considering how you typically go about…
Help me understand how you…
Yes, you’ll still be probing and following up throughout the discussion, but the more you can get from your participants in the initial response, the more detailed you can be in your probing. You can do this by asking your question in more than one way, or by laying out exactly what you’re looking for from participants. It may feel like you’re “over-explaining,” but the more specific you can be with your question, the more specific respondents will be with their answers. As an example, instead of simply asking “How do you decide where to go on vacation each year?” you could rephrase it to read:
Please briefly describe how you pick your vacation destination each year. In particular, let me know:
Here’s another thing to consider: oftentimes, what we would typically list as probes under a single question in a face-to-face guide are better handled as several different questions in an online guide. Suppose you are asking respondents about the various ways they use their smartphone. Your face-to-face guide might read:
In what ways do you use your smartphone for activities other than talking on it?
Probe:
In an online guide, you might be better served asking an entirely new question about apps, and another separate question about games, if you need specific detail about those categories from the majority of respondents. This will help you avoid asking several follow-ups of each participant (which can get lengthy and tedious), and will increase the likelihood that everyone will answer the question.
Modern OBB platforms support a range of creative exercises that go well beyond text responses. Online journaling, collaborative brainstorming boards, digital collage-making, concept reaction cards, website walkthroughs, and video narration tasks can surface emotions and motivations that standard questioning misses. These activities also increase engagement, particularly for participants who may express themselves better visually or verbally than in writing. Build at least one such activity into your guide, especially on Day 2 when engagement is at its peak.
Most platforms allow you to assign a short title to each question. Use descriptive labels; "Introduction," "Morning Routine," "Brand Reactions" rather than just numbers. This makes it easy for you, your observers, and your client partners to find specific threads during moderation and analysis.
Include transitional notes in your guide that give direction at the close of each day's questions. Thank participants for their input, instruct them on when and where to return, and tease what's coming next. A closing note like "Tomorrow we'll be diving into…" keeps participants excited and eager to see what's next. These moments also make the group feel more human and less like a data extraction exercise.
Online bulletin boards have matured significantly. What was once a workaround for geographically dispersed participants is now a primary methodology in qualitative research, valued for the depth and reflectiveness it produces, its flexibility across time zones, its ability to accommodate up to 30 participants per board, and the rich multimedia data it can generate. One well-run OBB can yield the equivalent insight of roughly three in-person focus groups.
The introduction of AI-assisted analysis tools also means that synthesis, once the most time-consuming phase of qualitative work can now begin while a board is still live, with automated theme identification and sentiment tagging giving moderators and clients a head start on findings. That said, the quality of any OBB still begins with a thoughtful, well-crafted discussion guide. The technology only amplifies what the guide makes possible.