User recruitment: What doesn't bring you joy should be automated
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The document discusses user recruitment challenges faced by Studyportals, a company aiding students in finding education abroad, highlighting the struggle of recruiting students for usability tests. It emphasizes the need for automation in recruitment processes to reduce no-shows and improve efficiency while providing insights into their testing and research methodologies. The author shares practical strategies for recruitment, including using remote users and ensuring clear communications to enhance participation.
User recruitment: What doesn't bring you joy should be automated
- 1. User recruitment What doesn't bring you joy should be automated Den Tserkovnyi @dtserkovnyi
- 3. Photo by Rob Janssen
- 4. I work at a product company called Studyportals. We help students to find education abroad. Most of us studied abroad and it was amazing! We want to share that feeling with everyone.
- 5. Our product In simple words we have a website. It’s visited by almost 3 million users a month.
- 6. We have 6 teams and we design & build lots of stuff
- 7. • Monthly tactical research • Feature based tests • Strategic long-term We test a lot
- 9. 5×5=25 users
- 11. Observers + no-shows = loss of credibility
- 13. BUT
- 14. Let’s start from the beginning
- 15. So you built an awesome prototype …
- 16. But how are you going to test it?
- 18. Who are you going to invite?
- 20. User recruitment Who likes to recruit users? Please raise your hand
- 21. Wait…
- 22. • Professional testers • Money • Available users • Middleman let's imagine you don't have unlimited resources for user research... Why not agency?
- 23. Lower overhead cost & pay to the user
- 24. Students as users Our users are students, should be easy to recruit? Well, easier than medical doctors for sure, but…
- 25. We struggled with it as long as I can remember
- 26. Referrals GDPR
- 27. Campus visit!
- 30. Great success! 32 students were recruited in half a day
- 31. 1 showed up to the test
- 32. Remember I mentioned Summer? Exams
- 33. How it worked 1. Get users 2. Send invites 3. Send reminders & hope for the best 4. Test
- 34. And test more If there are no shows
- 35. A lot of effort for unpredictable results
- 37. Remote users?
- 38. No user background bias Based on location
- 39. Easier to find
- 40. Closer to real environment
- 41. Hack day Day for experiments and learning every two weeks. When we are not busy fitting dinosaurs inside of the slide we do projects that make our life easier or more delightful
- 43. Automating parts of user recruitment
- 45. Recruit Targeted ad Email registered users Previously recruited users
- 46. Screen • Critical questions first (Save time for users) • Consent form (Do not record personal data before consent) • Personal details • Contacts (phone number, Skype, email)
- 47. Phone number decreased no shows
- 48. Better screening, based on personas
- 49. Schedule • Repeat technical requirements • Repeat technical requirements • Request confirmation via email • Send reminders
- 51. Don’t blame the user Blame your unclear instructions
- 52. Empathise! We noticed that people who do not confirm their participation often do not show up, that makes user researchers sad. And we need them to be happy.
- 53. Interview In-house Mobile remote & in-house Desktop remote moderated
- 54. Automate Connect all services to Airtable Record users and log sessions Send reminders Share with the team
- 55. Go wild!
- 57. 148 referrals 16 screener completions 3.32 EUR/conversion 10 students for the test Numbers
- 58. Demo From the user perspective
- 66. What else? Recruit more than you need No-shows are expensive (pay more than participants’ hourly rate) Experiment with research methods Don’t forget about behavioral data
- 68. How are you doing it? Discussion
Editor's Notes
- #2: My goal is to make you think creatively about the manual tasks you are performing. If you challenge your behaviour and automate your workflow I will be very happy.
- #3: My name is Den, and barely anyone can pronounce my surname. Born in Ukraine, moved to the Netherlands 7 years ago. I had a pleasure to work in a dynamic environments with a great teams as UX researcher, UX designer, Scrum Master, Product Owner. Last 3.5 years I’m leading UX design team at SP.
- #6: Website tests (mobile, desktop)
- #13: Observers & no-shows. Losing credibility
- #15: And do some visualisation
- #21: No, we don’t…
- #22: Is there problem to solve?
- #31: Could be even more, but we didn’t want to bother people indoors too much, because most of them were busy.
- #43: Problem / solution
- #47: Ask phone number
- #49: + Personas
- #53: Please respond to this email to confirm your participation.
- #55: $8 Calendly 20 Zapier
- #67: NN hourly rate of the user is not important. No-shows are more expensive