How to find the right test participants for your UX research
When designing products or services, it is important to conduct user research on a regular basis. Finding the right test participants for your user research can be a challenging and elusive task. Researchers can opt for a number of options to recruit test participants. However, there are many factors to consider in making your user research successful. In this article, several methods to recruit test participants will be explained. Moreover, the articles provide guidance on how to recruit the right participants. Additionally, a recent case study will be used to provide examples on how UXTesting’s recruitment services can provide you with qualified and professional testers.
Image: UXTesting Platform
Finding your test participants
One of the first things you need to consider is where you want to recruit your test participants from. Below we listed five different channels on where you can find testers:
Colleagues One of the easiest sources to find test participants can be your own colleagues. While it might be the easiest method, it is generally not the most reliable way to find testers. They might already have biases and assumptions about the product or service, which makes it difficult for them to represent an objective and outside point of view.
Friends and family Another way to look for testers is to reach out to your friends and family who would be available to conduct the test. It is also a zero-cost tactic and can be helpful when your sample size is small and the tester criteria is not too specific.
Social media channels and online forums Social media channels and online forums provide a useful way to find people with shared interests and hobbies. Especially if you are looking to recruit people with a more specific criteria. You can engage with testers directly using these social platforms and ask whether they would be interested to test your product or service.
Landing page on your company website The fourth way to find testers is setting up a targeted landing page on your company website. Although it is more a passive way to recruit testers, you can drive more traffic to this page by posting the URL link on social media channels and online forums.
Hire professional recruiters You can also choose to hire professional recruiters to locate your testers. Compared to previous discussed options, using professional market recruiters is a less time consuming way of recruiting. This will speed up your user research.
There is no one best way to find test participants. Each company has different target users, hence, the tester criteria is always different. The level of difficulty in finding the right tester is dependent on these criteria. In the case of general criteria, it is much easier to find suitable testers. Whereas specific criterias will of course be a more challenging task. Also, the sample size for your user research is another factor that determines where to look for testers. With a large sample size, using professional recruiters is more time efficient than finding testers yourself.
Recruiting the right participants
One of the barriers of conducting usability tests is finding test participants that actually represent your target groups, or more specifically your users. Besides establishing where to find your participants, it is crucial to recruit the right test participants. There are various criteria that you could consider when recruiting testers. Here are several examples of demographic criteria:
Age
Gender
Language
Location
Educational background
Employment
Product/ service history
How to recruit testers with UXTesting global tester recruitment services
At UXTesting.io, we have our own global tester pool to help you find professional and trained testers for your usability tests. As aforementioned, establishing test criteria is a prerequisite to finding the right participants and obtaining the relevant insights you may need. Therefore, it is strongly recommendable to be as specific as possible with your criteria. With UXTesting’s tester services, we can help you find the right participants whether your requirements are general or very specific. Last but not least, with trained testers UXTesting can help recruit, you don’t need to worry or spend extra time training your test participants.
Image: Global Tester Recruitment
Tester Case Study
At UXTesting, we often receive tester requests from companies each with their own criteria. In one of our recent cases, a European automobile company wanted to optimize their user experiences, making the whole experience between cars, humans and applications simpler, safer, and more enjoyable. The goal of the user research was to get user’s feedback regarding their prototype and application before launching the product to the market.
The company struggled to find test participants that were reliable while fulfilling specific test criterias. The UXTesting’s global recruitment database consists of professional testers that are qualified and trained.
To give you an idea of the specific requirements and showcase how UXTesting can help you find test participants that represent your target users, we listed some project information below.
Project background:
Number of testers: 8
Timeline: 2 weeks
Tester persona and criteria:
Japanese
Age: 18-60 years old
Android user
Recently bought a new car. The car model needs to be released within 3 years and cannot be a 2nd hand car.
Upper-Intermediate English speaking ability
We were able to help the client recruit 8 Japanese testers fitting the criteria over the course of just a few days. We scheduled the usability test between our client and testers and also took care of the tester incentive distribution. Before conducting the official usability test, we did a technical check with all testers to make sure everything goes smoothly during the usability test.
This article provided more information on where and how to find the right test participants for your usability test. Recruiting the right testers for your user research allows you to conduct testing that will give your company insights you need to build better products or services and create better user experiences.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like to schedule a meeting with us at service@uxtesting.io.
When choosing UXTesting’s recruitment services, simply fill out the form indicating your requirements. After submitting your testers form, our team will contact you within one business day.
