Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Table of Contents

...

 

Who indeed? Early on, you will we need to determine:

  • Which group (or groups) of users to target (or to specifically exclude)

  • How you we will invite them to participate

  • What incentive (if any) you’ll we’ll offer them for helping you us out


Which user groups?

Most websites serve several different types of users. For example, a toy-store site may get a large number of visits from both children (the toy users) and from adults (the toy buyers). If you’re we’re designing the tree for this site, you’ll we’ll naturally have to create a structure that works for both types of users.

This also means that you we should test your our tree with both types of users. The adults may be easy to recruit, but how will you we get children to participate?

There may also be certain users who you we don’t want to participate. If you’re we’re designing a website only for overseas users, you we don’t want domestic users cluttering your our results (and wasting their own time).

For more on user groups, see Different user groups in Chapter 9.

 

How to recruit?

Anyone who has done user research knows that recruiting always takes a bit longer than expected, so you we need to start planning this early.

...

  • Email – using lists of existing and/or prospective customers

  • Web ads – invitations posted on your our website and/or other related sites

Other methods include commercial research panels and crowd-sourcing sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk.

If you we are targeting more than one user group, or if participants are hard to come by, you we may need to try a variety of methods.

For more on recruiting methods, see Chapter 9 - Recruiting participants.

 

Will

you

we offer an incentive?

In most cases, yes. We offer incentives in the vast majority of our studies. Even a modest incentive makes it much easier to get good numbers in a short time, which is a godsend to iterative testing.

...

Because we’re only asking for 5-10 minutes of a person’s time, it’s usually not worth it to reward each participant. Instead, we offer them a chance to win something they value (e.g. “5-minute survey – win $300 in groceries!”).

If you’re we’re working for a government agency or a large organization, you we may need to decide on an incentive early on, because of the lead time needed to get it approved by management.

For more on incentives, see Offering incentives in Chapter 9.

 

...

Next: When will you we test?