Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

People, not Petri Dishes: Stories from a Research Recruiter (Videoconference)
Monday, September 23, 2019 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
People, not Petri Dishes: Stories from a Research Recruiter (Videoconference)
Speakers: Sarit Geertjes
Link:

Summary

Less than a year ago, we opened an in-house participant recruitment service at Atlassian, a 3,000+ employees tech company, for anyone who wanted to do research. During that year, the Research Recruitment team grew to two people and serviced over 150 people who do research. In this talk, I share what our main learnings were, the pitfalls of opening a free-for-all recruitment service, and some of my top participant recruitment tips.

Key Insights

  • Manual recruitment processes using tools like Qualtrics and spreadsheets are time-consuming and inefficient for scaling research participation.

  • Offering participants a choice between swag boxes and e-gift cards improves engagement and accommodates different preferences and legal constraints.

  • Implementing a Jira service desk ticketing system helped track recruitment requests but created a perception that recruitment is a simple 'service,' which it is not.

  • Collaboration between recruiters and researchers is critical, as recruiters lack deep product knowledge and require researchers to help refine screener questions.

  • Research leadership’s involvement is essential to prioritize requests and decide when to decline recruitment, balancing resource constraints and research quality.

  • Moving from a fully managed service to a highly supported self-service recruitment model empowers researchers and improves organizational scalability.

  • Careful communication about incentives as 'thank you gifts' rather than payments helps maintain ethical and legal standards and improves participant perception.

  • Managing participant data carefully with anonymization and privacy safeguards is vital, especially under GDPR and other local legislations.

  • Building community and engagement with research participants enhances their experience and may improve long-term panel quality.

  • Capacity planning can be improved by scoring recruitment complexity, considering factors like international reach and participant accessibility.

Notable Quotes

"If you want a unicorn, ask for a unicorn — and so lo and behold, Street got in touch and she indeed turned out to be a bit of a unicorn."

"Participant recruitment is not a one-stop shop or online shopping — these are people we’re dealing with and there’s a lot of nuance."

"We always say thank you gifts instead of incentives or payments because it’s a way to reimburse people without making it feel like a job."

"When you just feed the beast — the requests keep coming in and it’s unstoppable without clear boundaries."

"The Jira ticket system made recruitment feel like a service desk you just put a ticket in and expect results quickly, but it’s much more complex than that."

"Collaboration between recruiters and researchers is critical because recruiters don’t know all the details of each product or study."

"Research leadership, like Lisa, has the wider view to know what’s already been done and to help filter requests effectively."

"Offering swag boxes globally had its challenges but was worth it for participant engagement alongside e-gift card options."

"We don’t want participants to feel like they’re just petri dishes to be used and discarded — quality and respect matter deeply."

"Moving towards a highly supported self-service model is a watershed moment that makes everyone happier and research better."

Ask the Rosenbot
Lija Hogan
Contexts of Use: A Framework for Connection
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Peter Merholz
Customer-Centered Design Organizations
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Sarit Geertjes
People, not Petri Dishes: Stories from a Research Recruiter (Videoconference)
2019 • DesignOps Community
Sha Hwang
The First Fifty Years of Civic Design
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Lija Hogan
Practical Principles of Inclusive Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Jilanna Wilson
Distributed DesignOps Management (Videoconference)
2019 • DesignOps Community
B. Pagels-Minor
Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Jill Fruchter
Inconvenient Insights: The Researcher's Role is to Stay Curious
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Theme One Intro
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Chris Govias
Perspectives on Civic Design (Videoconference)
2021 • Civic Design Community
Robin Beers
How to create actionable insight in the face of politics and silos [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series] (Videoconference)
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Briana Thomas
When Design Ops Comes in H.O.T. : A Tale of a Transformed Design Org
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Deanna Smith
Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Greg Petroff
The Compass Mission
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Everything You Need to Know about the Civic Design 2022 Call for Presentations (Videoconference)
2022 • Civic Design Community

More Videos

Alex Hurworth

"The consequences of inaction are not hypothetical; they are happening right now."

Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine Marin

Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access

October 23, 2020

Laine Riley Prokay

"We started to ask ourselves, does every new Design Ops practitioner need 10 years of experience like Lisa and I? What opportunities are we missing by not having more junior roles?"

Laine Riley Prokay Lisa Gordon

Carving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners

September 9, 2022

Eniola Oluwole

"People were very adverse to changes because a small 0.5% conversion increase meant millions in revenue."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Nathan Shedroff

"You need to learn the vocabulary, tools, and processes your peers know and understand where they are inadequate."

Nathan Shedroff

Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically

March 31, 2020

Sam Proulx

"The smaller screen makes it easier to angle the device for adequate viewing, which computers just can’t replicate."

Sam Proulx

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

November 17, 2022

Feleesha Sterling

"If your design team cannot act quickly on findings, rapid research is not the method for you."

Feleesha Sterling

Building a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)

May 18, 2023

Neil Barrie

"Brand and product become two sides of the same coin when user insights have a seat at the top table."

Neil Barrie

Widening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture

March 25, 2024

John Devanney

"A well framed project is a rare thing — it’s also a creative exercise that unleashes teams’ possibilities."

John Devanney

The Design Management Office

November 6, 2017

Katy Mogal

"Small experiments that fit into existing structures make it easier to involve collaborators and reduce resistance."

Katy Mogal

But Do Your Insights Scale?

March 12, 2021