Although the need for methods for elicitation of customer requirements in the early phases of the product development process is apparent, and many different methods or approaches have been proposed, very little systematic and comparative research has been carried out that evaluates different approaches. The aim of this article is to describe the effects of the choice of participants and product representations as mediating objects in focus group interviews. Four focus group interviews were performed with different categories of participants and different product representations. The interviews were transcribed and analysed for differences in volume and character. The results showed that participants with product experience were able to provide more information than inexperienced users and were less dependent on the information provided by the product representation. The study also showed that different product representations emphasized different aspects of the product.