Mood Board

A mood board is a collage of images chosen to express ideas, sentiment, or emotion related to concepts or ideas. Mood boards can be created by researchers or by research participants by using art, photos, descriptive words, or other graphical elements from sources such as magazines, newspapers, or websites. The boards themselves can be physical or digital.

The underlying theory behind the mood board is that of stimulus and response. The researcher or research participant may select images that induce a complex emotional response to a certain stimulus such as a design, idea, or issue. The response to the mood board is then communicated to the researcher via rich discussion. Creating or responding to mood boards can be especially helpful for individuals who have difficulty with expressing emotions via words.

Mood boards are used in many areas of qualitative study including product design, industrial design, and market research. In product design, researchers can use mood boards to examine how potential consumers feel about certain product features. The mood board can be used to spur discussion. Information gleaned can be collected by the researcher.

Another potential application of mood boards is in focus group research. For example, in a small focus group, participants could be asked to construct a mood board around what educators would see as an ideal school environment. After creating boards, the discussion could revolve around why educators were motivated to select [Page 1093]particular images. Analysis and interpretation of the conversation could then commence using other standard qualitative methods.

See also Design-Based Research; Qualitative Data Analysis; Qualitative Research Methods