UX Participant Recruitment - 2009 Trends

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We’re presenting on this topic because we really know user recruitment. With a solid grounding in traditional market research, our portfolio of UX recruitment grows daily, and we are talking to your (potential) participants every day.

As researchers, we like to segment people… 3 key trends that have emerged in recent times are the ‘disclosers’, the ‘definers’ and the ‘desperadoes’. Of course, not everybody fits neatly into one of these slots… and many display aspects of the different typologies. But an understanding of the different characteristics can make it easier to understand some aspects of participant behaviour in the test.

We are living in an era of epic self-disclosure. A generation is emerging, who feel that if they don’t share, they don’t exist! Generation may be the wrong phrase, because whilst predominantly young, this group cuts across a lot of age profiles. The curious doublethink is that they want to share everything, but feel a sense of control and anonymity in so doing - believe their boss/parents etc will never see the stuff they are putting out there, and often don’t think about the consequences of putting information and images into the public domain, potentially forever. It’s also a chance to construct and display a persona of their choosing… maybe multiple personas… this is not deception as such but a portrayal/emphasis of different aspects of the self in different contexts. When you can choose your own username, write any profile you like, you can be whoever you like…

In user recruitment and selection, we have more resources than ever before to check that respondents are who they say they are. Virtually everyone has an online footprint of some kind. Often, we NEED to check this out, to ensure accuracy, and that wherever feasible we are recruiting the PERSON not their chosen persona. More cynically, this tendency to self disclose could easily be exploited more widely in UX research. For example there is a huge willingness amongst respondents to engage in diary-style tasks – blogs / vlogs – perhaps as a pre- or post- lab task. There are endless opportunities to add a more ethnographic slant to your test – do you need to use the lab at all, when participants will welcome you into their homes and workplaces to see your designs and applications in real lives and contexts… It’s also easy to set up bulletin-board style forums or communities, that can develop massive momentum of their own, and provide vast volumes of information. Of course within this consumers – especially younger ones – are more vulnerable, to abuse/exploitation. Researchers have a responsibility for awareness of the Market Research Society codes of practice and data protection standards, for personal integrity, and for common sense. You also need to protect your research process, to an extent, to avoid over-influencing behaviour in this group that will make every effort to please.

Definers are in interesting group. The last couple years have witnessed the democratisation of opinion forming on an incredible scale. Everyone is an expert now, and has to share their view… Anyone can set up a blog in minutes, and you can’t make a purchase (especially online) without being invited to share your feedback with the world. Particularly in technical fields, early adopters have an evolving role and greater influence. And their word travels further and faster than ever before. Boundaries are increasingly blurred too by the way that sales and marketing jargon has become the currency of everyday consumer interaction. Cynicism has grown / mystique is stripped – blame Sirallun! Skepticism leads to an increasing trend to trust the anonymous amateur blogger or tripadvisor reviewer, rather than the paid and freebied journo…

When recruiting users, our niches are smaller than ever these days. We have more experts and specialists, specialising in narrower and narrower areas. Detailed screening is necessary to locate and identify people’s real positions and expertise. The ‘early adopters’ so frequently targetted in UX still have a vital role, but as testers you need to be aware that their research participation forms part of their experience of your brand/service. The use of NDAs needs to increase, as does open discussion about confidentiality – if you don’t want your highly speculative new design details retweeted round the world in hours. Also, it is absolutely vital that the whole test participation experience is wholly positive to engage in – as this forms part of the opinions they are forming and blogging. Today’s ‘amateur marketers’ need their egos stroking a bit! Successful research with definers is non-hierarchical, and great success in traditional qualitative research is being achieved with exercises like ‘imagine you are the board of directors of xxxxx’. Acknowledging and respecting people’s level of contribution in this way shifts output to a highly strategic level, and generates increasingly significant outputs. Knowledgeable respondents are an asset not a threat! So be careful not to screen them out with the bath water and lose what they have to contribute.

The single biggest change for 2009 is that PEOPLE NEED THE MONEY Just like a few years ago it was suddenly ok and even cool to be green and environmentally aware, today it’s bang on-trend to be thrifty, to be a savvy consumer, to be open about how you are saving and earning money. On the flip side, some people are finding scruples such as honesty in screening are increasingly expensive luxuries…

For the Saros database, the recession has been terrific! We have had some brilliant PR, a huge database recruitment drive, and now have more willing potential respondents than ever before to select from. Fewer people than ever are genuinely too cool or too busy to be ‘not interested’. Turnout rates are also at an unprecedented high – they’ve spent the incentive 3 times over in their heads before they sit down. We work in a tightly controlled way, sending individual invitations to pre-selected potential participants… yet we are finding increasingly those invitations are getting passed on to friends and colleagues who might be interested, same way people pass on store discount codes. And sometimes they get forwarded with stuff like ‘try answering “yes” at Q4 as I think that’s where I fell out!’, which makes our job much more difficult… people want to help others get in, get some cash. The field is wider than ever, but less and less within our control. The subset of human beings willing to commit fraud (that’s what it is, deception for financial gain!) to receive incentives has always existed. Today it’s a bit wider. We need to double-check people ruthlessly – but as well as experienced and trained interviewers, we have access to technology that makes things easier. Not sure of software version? Send us a quick screenshot. Or snap a pic of a product on your phone. Also we are making increasing use of hard validation factors – eg bring your phone (and contract/proof of ownership) to the research, or you wont be able to take part…

Respondent recruitment has changed a great deal in recent times. It’s important to choose a supplier who has moved with those times Doublechecking and second guessing respondents takes more interviewer time – for quality recruitment this has to be built in to the timeframe of the whole project, as do the validation requirements. We are VERY aware that in UX it’s all one to one – no place for an incorrect recruit to hide – and we train our interviewers to ruthlessly sniff out those who are a little too desperate Once this is allowed for, there is greater potential for respondents to add value to your projects at every stage –specially creative stars for formative stage, opinion formers at design stage, recall them later on for your hundredth iteration, understand your brand via ‘disclosers’ creating collages or vlogs for you, etc We urge you to give as much thought as possible to the kind of respondents you need, for the objectives you want to achieve… What we do is not an end in itself, it’s all about enabling you to do YOUR best work. QUESTIONS / DISCUSSION…. maya@sarosresearch.com

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UX Participant Recruitment - 2009 Trends - Presentation Transcript

Respondent Recruitment Trends in 2009 Maya Middlemiss, Saros Research Ltd UXCAMP LONDON August 2009
- Saros Research Recruitment:
- 180,000 database of UK participants
- Strong track record in traditional qualitative market research as well as UX
- Over 10,000 respondents placed in research over 9 years
3 key trends for 2009: Disclosers Definers Desperadoes
“ Disclosers”
- Love to share, live to share
- The social networking generation
- Want to be interesting, even shocking
Recruitment implications: Disclosers
- More ways to validate and backcheck – and more necessary
- Greater potential for pre and post tasking
- Increased responsibility to take care
“ Definers”
- Anyone is an Opinion-former – bloggers, review sites, etc
- Influence of early adopters
- Increasing ‘marketing savvy’ amongst average consumer
Recruitment implications: Definers
- Harder to identify true opinion-formers and shapers
- Research participation becomes part of their experience and opinion
- Need to feel like a peer and co-creator
“ Desperados”
- Sign of the times – need the money
- It’s not uncool to save or earn some cash
- More prepared to bluff!
Recruitment implications: Desperados
- Field to recruit from is wider than ever
- Openness and awareness helps information spread
- An increasing number are happy to stretch a truth, or outright lie, to get into research and earn cash incentives
The bottom line….
- Interesting times..!
- Approaches need to be more creative and flexible than previously – this takes resourcing
- Potential to gain more from research than ever before