Recruitment

For any research, it is important to understand the scope of the project and who the research is aiming to understand. For local government, the projects will often impact the whole county. For these projects, it is important to identify the proportion of groups within society to ensure diverse representation. To do this you can use data sets, below are a few useful links from Somerset Intelligence to do this:

• Community Profiles – Somerset Intelligence – The home of information and insight on and for Somerset – Run by a partnership of public sector organisations
• 2011 Census Demographic dashboards – Somerset Intelligence – The home of information and insight on and for Somerset – Run by a partnership of public sector organisations

Using these community profiles and demographics, you should be able to work out the percentage proportions of people within the communities you are aiming to research. This will ensure you have representation of minority groups.

When conducting qualitative research, a target of 8-10 participants for each large proportions of demographic should ensure representation. Where there are lower proportions of that user group in Somerset, the target of participants will reduce.

When recruiting, it is important to consider the following parameters:

• Location
  • Districts
  • Rural vs. Urban
• Age
  • Following a spectrum of age ranges: 0 – 15 years, 16 – 24 years, 25 – 44 years, 45 – 64 years and 65 and over.
• Gender
• Race
  • White
  • Mixed / Multiple Ethnic Groups
  • Asian
  • Black / African / Caribbean
  • Other Ethnic Group
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Gender Reassignment
• Sexual Orientation
• Military Status
• Language

How to recruit

Now you’ve identified your user groups, time to recruit some participants.

If you’ve got the budget, then a recruitment agency is a good place to start as it saves time and ensures you get the diverse representation needed.

If you’ve not got the budget, then you’ll need to think out the box and contact them yourself. Below outlines the potential routes you might want to consider to help you with your recruitment:

• Contact existing networks – There may be people within the council who are already engaging with the group of people you need to do research with. Ask them if they would be happy to put you in contact with those who might be interested. It might be worth creating a quick poster outlining the purpose of the research and who they should contact to get involved.
• Search for existing groups – Look online to find any community services that the user groups you’d wish to research with could be attending.
• Commissioned services – The council has many commissioned services and therefore are a good front door for accessing service users.
• Attend events – There are often events around Somerset where residents go. This is a good opportunity to do some quick research methods with those who come to the Somerset Council stand. There are often ‘Comms events’ so make sure to get in touch with them to find out what’s available.
• Social Media – Utilise the existing SC comms networks to send out Microsoft Forms outlining the purposes of the research and for people to register their interest. T
• Digital Volunteer Panel – The digital team within SC are currently building a portfolio of residents who are keen to participate in user research and usability testing. They consist of a range of ages and locations in Somerset. To find out more about utilising the panel, contact Joe Dolan.
• Customer Panel – The customer panel team within SC have a growing portfolio of residents who are keen to participate in wide ranging projects including user research and usability testing. They consist of a range of ages and all district locations in Somerset. Panel members are enrolled on ‘Assemble’ which is used to advertise activities and schedule events.  To find out more about utilising the customer panel, or if you are ready to recruit participants, you can submit a request here.

Recruitment numbers

If your research is considering multiple user groups, the typical aim is to get 8-10 participants per user group. This number of participants is dependent on the proportional representation of each group. It is also worth noting that saturation point (the point at which no new information is discovered and themes repeat) may be achieved with less users, depending on the project.

For example, for the Help To Help Yourself project the scope was everyone in Somerset who accesses health and wellbeing information and services. This meant understanding the population in Somerset and proportioning based on the percentages of the population.

For usability testing 5-6 users across a broad demographic should help you find almost as many usability problems as you would find with many more test participants.

The Nielson Norman Group provide useful information on sample sizes for UX interviews and usability testing.