Inclusive Participant Recruitment

How can this training help you?

This session will help you tackle one of the biggest challenges when it comes to user research and one that’s critical to get right: Participant Recruitment.

We know for the design of a human world, it’s important to make sure our participants are from different demographics and to include participants with access needs and from underrepresented groups, in every round of research. So as researchers, how are we making sure this actually happens in practice?

In this session, we will share practical learnings from smooth and successful rounds of participant recruitment.

We will also acknowledge we don’t have all the answers and create space for us to have open conversations around things like:

• How can we make sure our research is inclusive, equitable and diverse?

• How exactly are we making sure to include participants from underrepresented groups, with a mix of genders, ethnicities, age groups, levels of digital confidence and access needs?

• What do we do when we don't meet these quotas? - is it really enough to say ‘we tried’?

We’ll empower your team to feel confident recruiting participants in a robust, inclusive and transparent way.

The impact of this is making sure the design of the world is not excluding certain populations and that our products and services work for everyone, equally.

Who is this training for?

This training is facilitated in a group setting to individuals or teams

This session is helpful for you if you are:

• Currently doing user research with participants on a live product or service

• Working in Research Operations, alongside or with user researchers

• Facing challenges in participant recruitment and want to make your processes more efficient

• Finding it difficult to recruit certain groups of people, even with external recruitment agencies

• Experiencing high no-show rates, or struggling to find suitable participants

• Looking to set up your own participant recruitment processes internally

The content of this session will be based on the needs of your team and the user groups you work with.

What’s included?

We’ll cover:

✨ Why this is so important - the impact and risks of not doing recruitment well, with examples

✨ Participant recruitment approaches for recruiting internally, via external agencies, or client partnerships

✨ Deciding on a recruitment strategy that is robust and efficient, based on factors such as the strength of networks

✨ Breakdown of the recruitment process step by step with practical actions on the experience of taking part

✨ Edge cases and specialist topics such as researching with children and young people, or internal staff

✨ Inclusive and accessible recruitment material and research approach, with continuous improvement

✨ Discussion - we’ll talk openly about ethics and challenges in participant recruitment. For example, what to do when we don’t get enough diverse participants and how to balance behaviours against demographics in the screening process. Do we push back on deadlines? How does different demographics affect sample sizes? Are we doing enough as an industry?

These topics and content will be tailored so that they are relevant to your team.

You’ll get:

🤝 A scoping call to discuss your team’s needs, user groups and approaches - to help create your workshop

🤝 Live, interactive training session for 2.5 hours - delivered to your team online or in person

🤝 Practical actions you can put in place straight away for recruiting participants effectively

🤝 Handout of resources and guidance you can refer back to and keep up to date for your team

🤝 Opportunity to discuss learnings and ideas as a team, to review what you currently have in place

🤝 Follow up support and check in call to help you implement actions from this session

This is a live session conducted in a group setting. If it’s online, there’s no pressure to be on your camera or to engage in discussions, if you don't feel comfortable.

How does it work?

• Contact us via the form or email

• We’ll book in a free call to talk about your team and their needs

• I’ll share a proposal and will ask for a small deposit to secure your slot

• Once booked, I’ll share material pre and post session, to help attendees to prepare for the workshop

The price is a fixed fee per research team

To tell us a bit more about your team and book in a free call, email sophie@dogoodresearch.org

For upcoming sessions as an individual, see Eventbrite or get in touch with me directly