Summary

This report tells you how to set up and manage a recruiting program, how to get the right users for specific tests, and how to deal with the users you have recruited. It also presents advice on when to outsource to a recruiting agency (for a fee) and when to use in-house recruiting.

The report includes results from a survey of 201 usability professionals conducted by Nielsen Norman Group, to find the expected expenses for:

• Incentives paid to test participants
  • Internal vs. external participants
  • In different parts of the world (and different regions of the United States)
  • Incentives for different job classes and categories of users
• Fees paid to recruiting agencies
  • In different parts of the world (and different regions of the United States)
  • For recruiting different types of users

The report includes an appendix with 15 sample forms and scripts for dealing with test participants. The time you save by not having to draft these documents yourself is worth more than the cost of the entire report.

This report costs $29 less than the average fee recruiting agencies charge you to recruit a single test user. If it improves your recruiting process even marginally, you will make up the price of the report many times over.

> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox summarizing the findings
> sample pages as thumbnail image

Table of Contents

144 page report.

1. Executive Summary
   • State of the Art for Recruiting
   • Specialized Recruiting Agencies
   • Incentives Provided to Test Participants
   • No-Show Rates
   • How to Get Started with Systematic Recruiting
2. Introduction
   • Who Should Read This Report
   • What You Will Find in this Report
   • Sources for the Recruiting Tips
   • Overlapping Tips
3. Tips and Tricks Summary
4. Planning Your Recruiting Needs
   • The Cardinal Rule for Recruiting: 1 tip
   • Developing Recruiting Criteria: 20 tips
     • Learning About the Users
     • Deciding How Many Participants to Recruit
     • Drafting the Screening Criteria
   • Determining the Appropriate Incentives: 23 tips
     • Monetary Incentives
     • Non-monetary Incentives
     • How Incentives May Affect Participant Behavior
     • How and When to Provide Incentives
   • Considering the Study Locale: 17 tips
     • When Participants Come to You
     • When You Must Go to the Participants
   • Planning for Training and Orientation: 5 tips
   • Preparing the Screening Script and Questionnaire: 16 tips
     • Cover Page and Opening Script
     • Screening Questions
     • Invitation and Schedule
5. Screening and Scheduling Participants
   • 1 general tip
   • Working With an Outside Recruiting Agency: 28 tips
     • When to Outsource Recruiting
     • Finding a Recruiting Agency
     • What to Expect from a Recruiting Agency
     • Choosing a Recruiting Agency
     • Managing a Recruiting Agency to Your Best Benefit
   • Doing Your Own Recruiting: 48 tips
     • Internal vs. External Studies
     • Finding Participants for Internal Studies
     • Finding Participants for External Studies
     • Making the Calls and Tracking Recruitment Progress
   • Reusing Participants: 7 tips
6. Preparing Participant Session Forms: 16 tips
   • Background Questionnaire
   • Sample Background Questionnaire
   • Consent Forms
   • Sample Minor Consent Form
   • Sample Participation Consent Form
   • Incentive Receipt and Voucher
   • Sample Receipt
   • Sample Incentive Voucher
   • Nondisclosure Form
   • Sample Nondisclosure Agreement
   • Tax Forms
7. Honoring the "Participant Bill of Rights": 35 tips
   • Treating Participants as Human Beings
   • Attending to Participants' Physical Comfort
   • Ensuring Participants' Safety
   • Ensuring Participants' Privacy
   • Dealing with Unqualified Participants
8. Future Planning
   • Building and Maintaining a Participant Database: 6 tips
   • Building and Managing a Recruiting Staff: 10 tips
     • Assessing Recruiting Skills
     • Interviewing Potential Recruiters
     • Managing Recruiters
9. Appendix A: Participant Recruiting Survey
   • About the Survey
   • Survey Results
10. Appendix B: Sample Scripts and Forms
    • Background Questionnaire
    • Confirmation Message - sample text
    • Dealing with Unqualified Participants - sample script
    • Eliciting Sensitive Information - sample script
    • Eliciting Web Experience - sample questions
    • Meeting with the system team - sample topics and questions
    • Consent Form for Minors
    • Nondisclosure Agreement
    • Participation Consent Form
    • Participant Database Information to Track
    • Participant Screening Script and Questionnaire
    • Participant Summary Table
    • Preliminary Contact by Study Sponsor - sample script
    • Incentive Forms - sample receipt and voucher
    • Thank-You Note - sample script
11. References
    • Usability Testing
    • Participant Recruiting
    • Ethics
    • Needs of Specialized User Groups
    • Questionnaire Design
    • International Studies
    • Statistics

Who Should Read This Report?

This report is intended for:

• Anybody who conducts or manages user tests.
• In-house recruiting staff.
• Recruiting agencies.
• Professors or consultants who teach usability (the site license does not allow you to make copies for course participants who are not employees of your company; even so, the material in the report will help anybody improve the way they teach usability).

This report costs 34 cents per tip; if there is even one tip that's new to you and which helps you improve your process, you will have gained many times the price of all the tips.

Please help us continue publishing low-price reports by buying a site license if you have colleagues who will read the report. If you only need it for yourself, then that's obviously what the single-user license is for. If somebody "gives" you a copy, then please buy a download anyway to keep prices down in the future.

Download Report (from eSellerate) $79.95 for the PDF file (144 pages) as a single-user license $198 for site license that allows you make multiple copies and distribute within your organization