News, tips and updates from Consent Kit

Even the best laid UX research plans can go astray when you’re scheduling user research sessions. If you don’t have a fast, simple way for participants to book a meeting time, your studies can quickly hit a roadblock.

I can’t even begin to estimate how many email “open or delete” decisions I make in a day. And I’m betting your user research participants are no different.

All UX researchers face common challenges in their quest to optimize product design and improve the customer experience.

Allowing everyone in your organization to contribute to product design and development can help employees feel empowered and valued. But should this extend to letting non-researchers contribute to UX research?

Accessibility research is a growing topic, and the importance and benefits need to be taken into account when you’re running any kind of UX studies.

Finding high-quality research participants is one of the keys to helping your organization develop better products and provide a great customer experience. But what does recruiting participants for research mean?

Recruiting people for UX research studies can be challenging. To attract and retain the right participants for each initiative, it’s helpful to offer user research incentives.

Running an effective UX research study relies on your ability to create questions for your participants that drive meaningful results for your organization.

Finding ideal research participants is the key to getting closer to your customers and creating better products and services. If you’ve been struggling to weed out unqualified people for your research panels, screener surveys are about to become your new best friend.

The amount of admin work that goes on before you get to the actual research is a lot.

Before your research even begins, you have to find and screen participants, manage their incentives, collect consent, schedule user interviews and sessions, and do so much more.

Getting informed consent from participants is a mandatory part of any responsible UX research study.

If you’re undertaking any type of UX research, you need to understand the logistics of data privacy regulations and consent management—and the implications for your business if you conduct research without taking these into consideration.

Creating exceptional customer experiences has become a key differentiator for many companies trying to compete in crowded markets.

If you’re looking to carry out responsible, ethical, and compliant UX research for your company, this guide will walk you step by step through developing a UX research process for your organization

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most robust global privacy law in effect today, but it shouldn’t be scary!

As User researchers, we constantly collect and analyse data to understand user behaviour and create better products and services.

If you plan to start a Research Ops program for your organization, or get involved as an individual, this guide will give you a thorough overview of what Research Ops is, how these teams support companies as a whole, and a simple framework to get started.

Speed is your company’s advantage for growth, and with that comes the need for fast and accurate data to inform the decision-making process.

Having a clear plan in place is essential before you spend valuable time and resources on any type of user research.

FACT: You need to do so many things to get a research study going. The most important of all, of course, is to find relevant people to share their insights and opinions with you.

Imagine starting a new UX research project…

After you’ve agreed the scope for a project, there’s so much planning and admin to be done.

I’ve spoken with a lot of people over the last two years about privacy, data protection laws and people’s rights and specifically, what that means for us as researchers.

2020 was, well 2020. Part of the mad scramble to move everything online put a lot of pressure on us all. We had to totally re-imagine how we do research, everything was suddenly up for grabs.

There is a natural imbalance of power that exists between the researcher and the person they’re learning from. There are some things you can do which help to make the participant more comfortable.

Decision making capacity (or DMC) comes from the informed consent doctrine; an ethical principle that is pervasive in modern medicine, but is often overlooked when talking about consent in the context of design research.

Being aware of what we’re recording and what kind of processing we need to do to it not only helps communicate our intent, but it can also save a lot of work in synthesis.

When we talk about informed consent in design research, we usually talk about the artifact itself - maybe a digital or paper form, and what should be disclosed in it.

We’ve been making some improvements to the way we create and utilise consent forms in Consent Kit.

Our initial research uncovered the following problems with creating consent forms:

At Consent Kit, we believe that how companies handle and process the information we provide them is fast becoming a key factor in deciding which services to use.

In the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published a helpful checklist, in line with the GDPR, for how you record and manage informed consent.

Before you do any research, you need to get evidence that the person you are learning from has understood your research, the potential consequences for them and that they have given you their permission to take part.