The Recruiting
Spectrum
Someone
in Your
Office
Live
User
Intercept
Recruiting
Agency
Realness
Friends &
Family
Facebook
Ads /
Twitter
Literally
The First
Person
You See
Panel
Craigslist
#1 #3
#2 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8
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Mainly
Because of…
Attachment to Your Interface
Someone
in Your
Office
Live
User
Intercept
Recruiting
Agency
Friends &
Family
Literally
The First
Person
You See
Panel
Craigslist
#1 #3
#2 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8
Facebook
Ads /
Twitter
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Mainly
Because of…
the moment of use
Someone
in Your
Office
Live
User
Intercept
Recruiting
Agency
Friends &
Family
Literally
The First
Person
You See
Panel
Craigslist
#1 #3
#2 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8
Facebook
Ads /
Twitter
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Unless It’s Top
Secret
Shhhh
Someone
in Your
Office
Friends &
Family
#3
#2
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Or When It’s
Complicated
Employees
Recruiting
External
Participants
LOL
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User Research
vs.
Design Research
vs.
UX Research
vs.
Insights
Recruiting Participants For…
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Watching people
use interfaces in
order to design
better interfaces
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60 YEARS AGO
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LET’S
RECORD
HUMANS
USING
INTERFACE
S
30 YEARS AGO
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Vs.
10 YEARS AGO
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1%
Humans
observing
humans
99%
Data
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Analytics
Data Science
Quantitative
Research
User Research
UX Research
Usability
User Research
1:1
Observation
Lean
Research
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TEXT
Recruiting & Team Geography
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Btw I’m Nate
Bolt
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PLEASE
BUY THIS
BOOK
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ethn.io
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Let’s Start With The
Recruiting Checklist
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What are you testing?
Where in the design cycle are you?
Method(s)?
Number of participants?
Target audience for the interface?
Targeting vs Screening
Incentives
Scheduling?
Stakeholders / Scrutiny?
Recruiting Checklist
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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1. Literally The First Person You See
2. Someone in Your Office
3. Friends & Family
4. Craigslist
5. Recruiting Agency
6. Panel
7. Facebook Ads / Twitter
8. Live User Intercept
The Best Methods For Recruiting
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1. Literally The First Person
You See
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Literally The First Person You See
#1
• Little or no budget
• Time pressure
• Broad Audience
• No skeptical stakeholders
• Direct collaboration with
designers/developers/PM
When to use
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• Broad Audience
• Easy
• Fast
• Free
• Dynamic Screening
• Logistics
• Don’t need a screener
Literally The First Person You See
#1
• Broad Audience
• No targeting
• Perceived as informal
• Geographically limited
• No attachment
Pros Cons
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Targeting vs. Screening
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2. Someone in Your Office
3. Friends & Family
They already love you
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• Shhhhh top secret - world can’t see
• You are the user
• Bob the builder culture
• Very early in the design cycle
• Complete game-changer
• No budget or time
When to use
Someone in Your Office / Friends & Family
#2 / #3
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• Attachment
• Easy to find
• Fast
• Free
• It’s their job
• Bias
• Can be hard to
schedule
• No incentive
• Not seeing external use
of your interface
Pros Cons
Someone in Your Office / Friends & Family
#2 / #3
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What is a Screener, Exactly?
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4. Craigslist
Or similar sites/concepts
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• Only need a bit of screening - something
more targeted than methods 1-3
• Just enough budget for incentives
• Very little scrutiny on participant
sourcing
When to use
Craigslist
#4
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• All walks of life
• Can be fast
• Inexpensive incentives
• Habit-forming
#4
• No attachment
• Sometimes slow
• Cheaters
• Kind of a pain
• Embarrassing to admit
• Habit-forming
• Requires extra vetting
Pros Cons
Craigslist
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5. Recruiting Agency
Money Bags
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• $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ($150/user)
• When you have more budget than time
• The kind of targeting you need is
demographics (income, location, age)
When to use
Recruiting Agency
#5
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• Hands down the least
work
• They can write the
screener
• Fairly fast
• Someone in charge of
no-shows, scheduling,
etc.
#5
• Expensive
• No attachment
• Professional tester alert
Pros Cons
Recruiting Agency
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6. Panel
Your own, a tool like usertesting.com, etc
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Panel
#6
• You’re using an online research
tool that provides users (dScout,
etc)
• Repeat testing
• Other methods not allowed by
your organization
When to use
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• Vetted
• Any technology has
been tested
• Known entity
• Demographics
Panel
#6
• Limited targeting
• No attachment
• Professional tester alert
Pros Cons
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7. Facebook Ads / Twitter
Or Social Media, or Anything Similar
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Facebook Ads / Twitter
#6
• You need to reach a population
you have zero contact with.
Triathlete mechanics.
• There’s some budget
• You have the patience to learn ad
targeting
When to use
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• Can be incredibly
targeted
• Fast
• Geographically diverse
• Access to populations
even agencies might
not have access to
• Attachment
(potentially)
• Gets expensive
• Professional tester alert
• Difficult to learn
Pros Cons
Facebook Ads / Twitter
#6
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8. Live User Intercepts
Time-Aware Recruiting, In the moment, etc
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• Decent traffic web site or app
(> 50K pageviews/ month)
• Moments matter
• In-depth screening and targeting
• Some budget
When to use
Live User Intercepts
#8
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• Attachment
• The moment
• Fast
• Targeting or Screening
#8
• Scary
• Can be Expensive
• Requires some
engineering resources
or high traffic
• Totally new users
Pros Cons
Live User Intercepts
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Let’s All Try Out This
Live User Intercept
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ethn.io/77226
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Recruiting Pitfalls
And Now Some Common
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No Shows
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Solution: Schedule Backups
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BIAS
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Solution: Behavior.
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Quiet Users
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Garden Variety Demographics
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The Quant(s)
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• No Shows
• Bias
• Quiet Users
• Garden Variety Demographics
• The Quant(s)
Summary of
Recruiting Pitfalls
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Scheduling + Recruiting = ?
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(for user research)
The Amazing Part
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• Open-ended questions
• Attachment to your interface
• Extreme scenarios - generative vs
formative
• Phone calls
• Involving stakeholders
• Online Consent
• Staged Incentives
The Amazing Part
of Recruiting Participants
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If NASA can
do THIS from
153 million
miles away,
we can meet
our users
where they
are, even if
we’re a couple
thousand
miles away.
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Thanks for listening
Recruit Like The Wind
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fin.
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And also the ethn.io code for 20% off
is ROSENRAD
Participant Recruiting Take-Aways
remoteresear.ch/urfe