Write the Screening Questionnaire GGGE /2014  Steps for developing a screener :  Review the profile to understand users’ backgrounds  Identify specific selection criteria  Formulate screening questions  Organize the questions in a specific order  Develop a format for easy flow through the questionnaire  Test the questionnaire and revise it  Consider creating an “answer sheet”

Find Source of Participants GGGE /2014  Internal participants  Qualified friends and family  Web site sign-up  Existing customers from in-house lists  Existing customers through sales representatives  User groups or clubs or other community groups  Societies and associations  Referrals from personel networks, coworkers and other participants  Craigslist  College campuses  Market research firms or recruiting specialists  Employment agencies  Newspaper advertisements

Screen and Select Participants GGGE /2014  Screener is an excellent tool to use if you have never recruited participants before or if you plan to use an agency to do recruiting.  Screener (document) :  Scripted language for a starting a phone interview process  Getting through the questions  Scheduling the participant (if qualified)  Closing interview

Screen and Select Participants GGGE /2014  Screening considerations :  Use the questionnaire or open-ended interview questions?  Complete the screener always, or only when fully qualified?  Conduct screening interviews  Inform the potential participant who you are  Explain why you are calling and how you got the contact information  Go through the questions in the questionnaire  As you eliminate or accept people, mark them off on your list  Include a few least competent users in every testing sample  Beware of inadvertently testing only the “best” people  Expect to make tradeoffs

Schedule and Confirm Participants GGGE /2014  When interview participants to see whether they meet the selection criteria, you should :  Collect their top three available dates and times but not make any immediate commitments  Set priorities among the pool of participants  Once you have decided who should be in which sessions, you should :  Confirm with participants, send session information including directions and forms

Compensate Participants GGGE /2014  We should compensate those who serve as participants, although it need not always be monetary compensation  Examples :  Participants “off the street”; small token such as a pen or t- shirt  Free or discounted products from your company’s sales catalog  Gift certificates  A simple memento such as calculator  If specific professions; pay an honorarium of about $50 per hour, depends on location

Protect Participants’ Privacy and Personal Information GGGE /2014  You have responsibility to protect the information and keep it private.  Do tell participants why you are collecting the personal information and what you are going to do with it.  You should also tell them how long you are going to keep them.  Keep the identities of your participants anonymous.  Don’t use names to label recordings or files (just put names on session schedules).  Do not share video or audio recordings of participants for any reason other than the reasons that participants agreed to.

Conclusion GGGE /2014  Your results may not be valid if your users aren’t representative  Find users based on your personas/user profiles  Depending on your project 3-5 users (or less!) may be enough  If necessary, create a short screening questionnaire  In some domains, may be helpful to track users via a profile matrix  Don’t forget accessibility testing!  Protect participants’ privacy and personel information