Virtual Floorspace

One way to ensure a relevant sample of participants is to select them from your customer database. You can establish precise criteria and then query the database for matches. This is my preferred method for recruiting participants for customer interviews, because the sessions tend to be very productive. This isn’t always possible or desirable. In some companies, privacy restrictions make it difficult to contact customers based on purchase history or other interactive behaviors. These companies don’t want their customers to feel that they are being observed while they shop on the web site. Of course, it is questionable whether there are still many customers out there who do not realize their every move on web sites is being tallied and reported.

One case where the customer database is only a partial solution is when you want to understand both customers and non-customers. In this case you can use the customer database to recruit customers, but must rely on other means to obtain the non-customers. One resource for the non-customer participants is discussed in the next section.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)

Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts

Uncategorized customer research, Depth interviews, finding participants, recruiting, screening criteria, screening participants, user research

A critical step in any qualitative research study is selecting participants. In quantitative research, the selection is random from a given pool of participants, and the number of participants is high. But in qualitative research, you will probably work with a small sample of 10 to 100 participants, so who they are and their responses will have a much larger impact on the findings than they would in a quantitative study.  

Participants for qualitative research are usually selected by using a questionnaire called a participant screener. The participant screener contains a series of questions based on pre-determined criteria that, when asked in sequence, results in a set of research participants that have the characteristics you’re most interested in, and has the proportions of those characteristics that are representative of your target user population.

The screening criteria can be very simple for small projects with a clearly delineated, homogeneous user base. Research for more complex web sites that have widely varying audiences performing complex or high-value tasks typically call for more precise screening criteria. An example of simple screening criteria would be :”Five males and five females who work in reception at a SeaSide Resort facility in Florida.” An example of more specific selection criteria would be: “Females between the ages of 18 and 25 who have purchased 3 or more apparel items within a 3 month period from a web site, spending a minimum of $40 per item.” Neither approach is right or wrong; their correctness depends on the scope and objectives of the research. The screener criteria should result in participants who vary widely in the characteristics that are most likely to impact the way that people will interact with the final design.

There isn’t a single format for participant screeners. They are structured to meet the needs of the project. If your team is doing the screening, then the document might be a simple table. The first column lists the screening criteria, e.g. Age. The second column has the quota for that criteria, which means the number of participants needed for the study who have particular values of that criteria, e.g. 5 people 20 – 29 years old, 5 people 30 – 39 years old, etc. The third column is a tally of people recruited so far who have the specified values for the criteria. The fourth column may have comments about the criteria, e.g. how the ranges and values can vary and yet still be acceptable.

If an outside agency is doing the recruiting, then the screener is written in the form of a script. The recruiter calls potential participants and walks them through a series of questions. People are dismissed if they don’t match the criteria. If they do meet the criteria, then they are tallied so that the minimum and maximum number of people specified for each criteria is adhered to.

If the criteria are multi-tiered, meaning more than one factor in each criteria, then a branching script is necessary. For example, if you want to find 5 women who purchased 3 or more pairs of shoes who have a household income of 75k or more, and a maximum of 2 women who purchased no more than one pair of shoes in the past year but who have a household income of 200k or more, then the screener needs to have a series of related questions that branch from one to the other. For every answer that the participant gives, there is a corresponding script answer, even when they are being excused from the study. So for example, when a question asks potential participants their age, the person conducting the screening interview needs to have a response for whatever the person says. This can be more difficult than it sounds. In addition to having a reply for anything the potential participant says, there is also a branching instruction that tells the screener what to read next, and what to tally, and the maximum or minimum number of participants who answered in the same category who are needed for the study.

Written by Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)

Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts

Uncategorized Depth interviews, screener, screening criteria, screening participants, user research