UX2: Planning and running research
Recruiting participants, with consent and privacy
🎯You'll be able to
Recruit a fair mix of participants, get informed consent, and keep participants' personal details out of research files.
🏠The everyday picture
A good doctor explains a procedure before asking you to sign, tells you that you can say no, and keeps your file private. Research with people needs the same care.
📘What it really is
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Who to recruit: people who match the problem statement (UX1): for SehatSlot, people who book a doctor at least once a year. Aim for a mix that matters to the design: ages, experience with apps, devices, languages.
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Where: places your users already are (pharmacies, community centres, existing customers), and through people they trust. Recruiting only colleagues or friends gives you people too much like you.
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Incentives: a small thank-you (a voucher or a fee) for people's time, the same for everyone, not dependent on what they say.
- Informed consent means people understand, before agreeing:
- what the study is for and how long it takes;
- what is recorded (screen, voice, face) and who will see it;
- that they can stop at any time without giving a reason;
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how long recordings are kept, and that they can ask for them to be deleted.
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Privacy: give each person an ID (P1, P2…). Keep names and phone numbers only in the recruiting sheet, with access limited to whoever arranges the sessions. Don't put contact details in plans, notes or reports. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 expects a clear purpose, consent and limits on keeping data; your organisation's policy may add more.
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Extra care for children, patients, and anyone who might feel they can't refuse (for example, employees of the client).
📝A worked example
Input: the starter research/study-plan.md.
Steps:
- Open its Participants table: it lists names, phone numbers and email addresses.
- Look for a Consent section: there isn't one.
Expected output: a Participants table with only an ID, an age band, whether they've booked online before and the session type, plus a
Consent section covering recording, stopping at any time, keeping and deleting. Test 3 of npm run test:research checks both.
🌍Where it's used
- Health services run research through an ethics process before speaking to patients.
- Agencies use standard consent forms and delete recordings after the project.
- Product teams keep a participant panel with consent recorded and refreshed regularly.
📝Case scenario
A team shared a research report with session clips in a company-wide channel. One clip showed a participant's name and bank balance. The team deleted it, apologised to the participant, and changed the rule: clips are blurred and cut before sharing, and reports use IDs.
🖱️Try it
Write the consent script you'd read aloud at the start of a 30-minute session. Success: it covers purpose, length, what's recorded, the right to stop, how long recordings are kept and how to ask for deletion, in plain words a 65-year-old would follow.
⚠️Common mistakes
- Recruiting only people like the team. Sign: every participant works in tech. Fix: recruit where real users are.
- Consent as a quick signature. Sign: a form handed over without explanation. Fix: explain aloud and check understanding.
- Contact details in research files. Sign: phone numbers in the notes or slides. Fix: IDs everywhere except the recruiting sheet.
🛠️For your project
Project 1 asks you to rewrite the study plan's Participants and Consent sections; the safety items in its marking guide are about privacy.
✅Quick check
What must people know before they agree to a session?
Show the answer
Its purpose and length, what's recorded and who sees it, that they can stop at any time, and how recordings are kept and deleted.
Where do participants' names and phone numbers belong?
Show the answer
Only in the recruiting sheet, with limited access; everything else uses IDs.