Source, Screen, Select: How to Recruit the Right Research Participants

Source, Screen, Select: How to Recruit the Right Research Participants

Recruiting the right research participants is make or break for user research. Here’s how to recruit research participants for your UX study, plus key best practices to follow.

Chapter 1

Participant recruitment 101: Finding the right testers for your research study

The participant recruitment process is central to gathering actionable, relevant user insights that can inform design decisions and guide you to build a user-centered product.

But recruiting the right research participants can be a lot of work. From tapping into niche audiences to ensuring everyone shows up, there’s a maze of challenges that come with recruiting ideal test participants.

That’s where this guide comes in—your overview of participant recruitment, complete with insights from UX professionals across the industry.

Recruit the right participants, every time

With over 3 million vetted participants across 130+ countries, and 400 filters, Maze Panel makes recruitment easy.

Starting off our guide, this chapter will explain how to successfully recruit the right research participants for your study, before covering the main obstacles you’ll likely face and how to overcome them. We finish up with expert-led best practices from UX professionals at Creative Navy, League, TietoEVRY, and Groupe Foyer.

What is participant recruitment?

Participant recruitment is the process of finding and onboarding people to participate in your UX research study. It typically involves reaching out to potential participants, screening them, and scheduling sessions to conduct product testing and collect first-hand user insights.

You have the choice of either manually recruiting participants by reaching out through traditional channels like emails, or using a research participant panel to connect with vetted testers. Either way, research recruitment can be done for any user research method, whether it’s user interviews, usability testing, or card sorting.

Why is recruiting the right users so critical for research success?

Recruiting the right users is an important process of any UX research process because it gives you access to insights that drive data-backed product decisions.

While it may be tempting to conduct user research with colleagues or friends, or skip the process altogether, without recruitment your UX research projects come to a grinding halt. Not recruiting participants means you won’t be able to test your design with real people that match your user base.

A faulty participant recruitment process can be just as bad. Failure to screen participants can result in insights that don’t match your user base’s needs. Similarly, not accounting for diversity across participants can result in a less-than-accessible design.

Recruiting the wrong user profile is both wasteful and deceptive. It can skew the data and affect predicted project timelines.

Kate Varga
Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy

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👉 The bottom line: The right participants lead to the right insights. And the right insights lead to user-centered designs.

How many research participants do you need?

The short answer is it depends.

The Nielsen Norman Group maintains you can uncover 85% of user problems with just five participants. Once you’re over five users, there’s a chance of diminishing returns. Anything less, and you don’t uncover enough insights. It’s a nice, neat, and well-rounded number. But really knowing how many users you need for research is a tad more complicated.

While five is a good starting point, we maintain that there isn’t a hard and fast rule for how many participants you need to recruit.

Instead, we recommend choosing a range based on your UX research method. For example, The five-user rule works well for usability testing, but you may need to dive into different user segments to uncover the remaining 15% of usability issues for higher-stakes projects.

Qualitative, in-depth UX research methods like interviews and focus groups need eight to twelve participants before patterns emerge. For quantitative close-ended UX surveys, you need dozens, if not hundreds, of answers to achieve statistical significance.

Pro tip 💡

Use our free sample size calculator to work out how many research participants you need to recruit for your research study.

How to recruit user research participants in 5 steps

Now it’s time to start the participant recruitment process. From finding participants to making sure they have everything they need for your testing session, here’s how to recruit user research participants in five steps.

1. Outline your research plan and goals

Begin by circling back to your UX research objective. Remind yourself what you’re trying to achieve by testing participants, and how you intend to achieve it.

These two points will be the basis for fleshing out a more detailed UX research plan for recruitment. Continue by defining:

  • Your UX research questions: What will you ask of participants through your testing session? Will they be completing a task using your prototype, or will they be giving in-depth interview answers on why they like or dislike a feature? The questions should be relevant to your study design and UX research objective.
  • What success looks like: You might be out to uncover specific user behaviors or test a UX research hypothesis. In either case, confirm what you hope to achieve so you can measure success after sessions.
  • Timeline and resources: Factor in how long recruitment may take, what budget you have available for incentives or travel, and if you need to invest in a recruitment tool to access pre-vetted participants or recruit faster.

Having this top-level recruitment plan provides you with a blueprint to collect insights. However, you still need to find the right type of participant.

2. Identify your ideal research participants

You may think you’ll know the ideal participant when you see them. However, that’s not always the case.

Make sure the participants you recruit are representatives of your existing and potential users. Elba Ornelas, Senior Product Designer at League, advises you to look at your user personas to drill down to the exact participants you need:

[Personas] outline the main user profile that your product may be targeted for,” says Ornelas. “Bear special attention to the type of behaviors you are seeking to fulfill.

Elba Ornelas
Senior Product Designer at League

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Kate Varga, Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy, seconds this, but highlights some occasions to divert from personas:

“The specificity of the user profile largely depends on the project’s scope. If it’s broad (e.g. your product is in the early days, you’re trying to understand what features you could add or what’s not going well with the present iteration), recruiting someone who doesn’t match your persona to a T can prove to be a blessing.

“On the other hand, if you do want to test something specific, you need to establish and understand your user personas. It also helps to define what knowledge you’re trying to gain from this round of research. Define and memorize these parameters to avoid wasting both your client’s time and the user’s.”

One way to speed up matching with the right personas is by utilizing a participant recruitment tool that can target candidates through custom demographic filters. This enables you to speed up the participant recruitment process, guarantee persona matches, and have more time for the actual research.

3. Create effective screener questions

If you’re using a participant panel like the Maze Panel, you might not need to manually conduct screening surveys. However, you might want to customize the questions.

Screener questions act as a sieve, helping you filter out participants who don’t match your user persona or other tester criteria. They maximize the value you get from recruitment and ensure participants you’ve chosen are relevant to your study.

To make your screening successful, avoid asking leading questions that instruct a person to answer in a specific way. Make sure questions are directly related to the user persona you’ve created for recruitment. For example, your product might be specifically made for HR professionals. A screener's question would be: 'How many years of experience do you have working in Human Resources?' Without that piece of information, you can’t know if the participant is qualified to test your product or not.

Kate encourages focusing screener questions on product familiarity: “The product itself is built for a specific user group, so that acts as my first point of reference. I find that demographic questions can be essential if I’m looking for a specific group (for example, people with a certain level of digital literacy).”

I’m usually interested in the user’s background, their personal context of use, the interface sections they use most frequently and how.

Kate Varga
Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy

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That being said, Geoffrey Crofte, Senior UX Lead at Groupe Foyer advises careful consideration of your goals and users when it comes to disqualifying screener questions:

“We tend to avoid key disqualifying questions, because all opinions matter. For example, for our insurance company creating a product for ‘Active mobility’, a first disqualifying question could be ‘Do you mostly drive a car, or go to work using alternative solutions like bike, bus, scooter or foot?’

“Users might be disqualified if they mostly drive a car, but this is a beginner’s mistake. Maybe this person is driving a car because they don’t know better, or they have key blockers to adopt another way. So feedback from this person could in fact be more valuable.”

Whatever your questions, a tool that directly integrates screeners before your UX research test begins can be especially helpful. Maze custom screeners let you add up to five multiple-choice questions before your participants begin the test. Participants who don’t make the cut will be met with a rejection screen, while those who satisfy the criteria will be able to access your testing questions.

maze participant recruitment screener

With your screener questions there to safeguard you from the wrong participants and confirm eligibility, you’re ready to start recruiting; all you need to do now is find the right people.

4. Identify recruitment channels and methods

Choosing a recruitment method depends largely on the research goals and target audience.

Marcus Ahlstrand
UX Designer at TietoEVRY

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The good news about recruiting is that you don’t need to commit to a single channel for finding participants. Some promising recruitment strategies and channels include:

  • Social media: If your brand or anyone working with it has created a following, you can post about your user research project and the type of participants you’re looking for. For more targeted recruiting, use LinkedIn's search function to enter keywords associated with your persona and reach out to profiles.
  • Your own users and customers: If you have people regularly using your products, consider recruiting them through in-app messages or via email.
  • Recruiting tools like Maze Panel: Tools like Maze Panel directly connect you with millions of potential testers, complete with over 400 filters to home in on your ideal participant.
  • Recruiting agencies: Some companies offer to manage the entire recruiting process from start to finish. While convenient, they’re typically more expensive than using a tool or a combination of methods above.

Want to dive into these methods (and more) in more detail? Head to the next chapter for a breakdown of participant recruitment methods in UX research.

Get more participants using the snowball effect ❄️

Snowball sampling, which takes its name from the well-known snowball effect, is a participant recruitment method that involves asking initial, relevant participants to refer other potential participants. It can be useful for general and highly-focused studies alike.

We usually recruit users by posting on relevant groups and using the snowball method to get the numbers we need.

Kate Varga
Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy

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Once you settle on your chosen channels and methods, it’s time to smoothly onboard your participants so they’re ready for testing.

5. Onboard user research participants

Before kicking off the research session, it’s important your participants have clear instructions and expectations about the process.

You should cover:

  • Location or meeting platform
    • Any access instructions needed e.g. how to use the virtual research tool, parking information, travel or directions
  • Time and date
  • Session structure
    • Including who will be present, if it’s moderated or unmoderated
    • What will be expected from the participant
    • Session duration
  • How you intend to store their data
  • Any incentives or payment agreed
  • Consent to record and use their [opinion/voice/video]

We also recommend emphasizing that the test isn’t an assessment of them, or their capabilities. There are no right answers—it’s a way for your team to learn from their perspective. Depending on the research method, you can explain it as a test for the platform, rather than the user.

We put together this message template you can use:

Hello [participant name],

Thanks so much for agreeing to participate in our research study! We’re excited to learn about your perspective using [product]. This will be a [remote/in-person] session [on/at] [platform/location] starting at [date and time].

A few additional details you may like to be aware of:

  • We’ll begin with a quick introduction, and then we’ll go over [brief description of tasks or questions].
  • The session should take about [duration].
  • We’ll record information for internal use only. It’s to better understand your feedback. Any data collection will be kept confidential and stored securely.
  • Keep in mind this isn’t a test of skills, and there are no correct answers—it’s an opportunity for us to learn about [your experience using the product, your preferences, and any challenges].
  • As discussed, we are [not providing any monetary compensation for taking part in this study/giving you X]
  • We’ve also attached a consent form for you to sign and send back to us. Please know that you have the right to drop out of the study at any time.

Please let us know if you have any questions, and we’ll be happy to answer!

Looking forward to our testing session!

[Your name, position, and company]

Copied and pasted onto your clipboard? Great. Let’s talk about some recruitment challenges you’ll encounter—and how to avoid them.

Challenges of UX research participant recruitment (and their solutions)

There’s a lot to do before you can get participants in to answer questions or test out your product. Participant recruitment is a complex process with many roadblocks—luckily, you’re about to read how to overcome the four main challenges that arise in UX research participant recruitment. Let’s go!

Accessing niche audiences

Not all types of participants are equally easy to find. Depending on your product goals, you may need to tap into niche audiences with specialized skills. For example, a product that organizes patient information for surgeons will give you a much narrower participant pool than if you were recruiting testers for a project management tool.

Niche participants will be less likely to engage with broad participant outreach. Instead, you might need to join specialized social media groups, professional associations, or conferences and build relationships with people within the industry.

Marcus was conducting a two-day website accessibility test at TietoEVRY, and shares how he partnered with a national organization when recruiting research participants with disabilities:

“We wanted to determine if blind users could navigate it effectively with their accessibility aids. For this, we partnered with a national organization representing visually impaired individuals. They connected us with participants who matched our criteria, providing a reliable and ethical recruitment pipeline.”

Once you’ve connected with folks from your niche audience, it’s worth nurturing these relationships throughout the entire product development testing process, to cultivate a reliable, repeatable participant pool.

Ensuring diversity and representation

It’s tempting to recruit whoever is available soonest, but this is a rookie mistake. Recruiting this way can lead to skewed results and an inaccessible design by not intentionally seeking out and including people with diverse backgrounds.

Tailoring recruitment efforts to match the diversity needed ensures the research captures varied perspectives, leading to more comprehensive insights.

Marcus Ahlstrand
UX Designer at TietoEVRY

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Build a representative sample size of different genders, races, cultures, minorities, and socioeconomic walks of life. It can be worth capturing demographics within screening so you have the information readily available.

To improve your chances of recruiting across diverse groups, consider diversifying your recruitment channels, too. Partnerships with community centers, advocacy groups, and region-specific forums can help. Opting for participant panels are a good tactic to increase your recruitment reach—provided they let you connect with vetted testers from other countries, of course.

Adhering to legal requirements

Navigating the maze of consent and legal requirements for user research can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

To safely adhere to legal requirements, you need to:

  • Get informed consent
  • Clearly explain what your study involves
  • Inform participants how data will be used
  • Let them know they can drop out anytime

Marcus emphasizes: “it’s essential to be transparent with participants about how their data will be used and stored. This includes providing a detailed list of what will be recorded, ensuring anonymity, and explaining their rights—such as the ability to withdraw consent and request data deletion.”

Consent should always be obtained before starting the research, ideally in writing, and reconfirmed during the session, especially if recordings are involved.

Marcus Ahlstrand
UX Designer at TietoEVRY

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Not only is this practice ethical, but it also ensures you’re complying with data protection laws such as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) for European Union (EU) countries.

Make sure to do additional research on regulations specific to your product’s particular industry. For example, clinical research that involves healthcare provider data needs to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) within the U.S., meaning you need to de-identify personal health data.

Geoffrey explains that Groupe Foyer, as an insurance company in Luxembourg, Groupe Foyer cannot store client information in the cloud:

“We also keep only the required information about our clients, and never share them with any other services inside the company to avoid potential backfire/misuse.”

Remember: even if you’re confident of legal restrictions and responsibilities, double check before kicking off your participant recruitment.

Minimizing no-shows and dropouts

There’s not much worse than setting aside time for a participant, only for them to not attend an interview or drop midway through a survey. There can be plenty of explanations, ranging from personal issues to schedule changes and even forgetfulness.

Whatever the reason, there are ways to minimize your chances of this happening. Marcus suggests “planning for a certain percentage of dropouts, typically 10-20%” to avoid needing to conduct further research down the line.

Kate from Creative Navy shares her personal tips for maximizing attendance:

  • Send reminders: You don’t want to seem pushy, but a well-written follow-up email or text message 24 hours before the scheduled session can help remind folks to show up. Use this to highlight any incentives and offer alternative times if needed.
  • Maintain flexible scheduling: You never know when participants are on a tight schedule, so open up a few extra slots on your calendar and use tools like Calendly that allow users to book directly and reschedule if needed.
  • Overrecruit by a small margin: Even if you don’t need that many participants, anticipate a percentage of no-shows and bring on a few more testers to substitute in.
  • Make it easy: Simplify the sign-up process, tell users they don’t need to prepare anything, and—where possible—don’t ask participants to download any software.
  • Keep it short and sweet: People are far more likely to attend a 20-minute meeting or survey they can do in their own time, as opposed to a labor-intensive meeting that lasts several hours. Of course, some studies take longer but consider splitting these into multiple sessions.

Show participants that their feedback matters. Show them that this is an opportunity to vent about their frustrations and help you build solutions. Certain users start off with a high level of skepticism, so it's important to create a safe space for them.

Kate Varga
Senior UX Designer at Creative Navy

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3 Participant recruitment best practices for your recruitment strategy

So we’ve covered challenges that come with participant recruitment, but what are the best practices to keep in mind when planning your recruitment?

Here’s the basics for your participant recruitment strategy.

1. Create a system to keep in touch with test participants

When you recruit participants for a research study, set up a system that will help you keep in touch with them and manage relationships for current and future studies. Having this information handy allows you to create a list of interested test participants you can reach out to for different projects.

To do this, you can:

  • Use a project management tool like Trello or Notion
  • Create a spreadsheet to save participants’ contact information
  • Take advantage of a participant management tool like Maze Reach

Whether your research team opts for manual or automated participant management, use this system to track the progress of recruitment—e.g. ‘Approved’, ‘Screening questions sent’, ‘Awaiting consent’.

If you’ve opted for a participant management tool, you should have access to more developed management options—for example, Maze Reach allows researchers to:

  • Curate a dynamic database of high-quality, responsive participants: Create a pool of participants and segment by demographic, test metrics, and campaign engagement
  • Access participants where and when tests happen: Complete the entire research workflow in one place, from creating tests to sharing with participants and reviewing insights
  • Send targeted remote tests, faster: Collect relevant insights quickly by sending direct mazes in bulk as targeted email campaigns
  • Build empathy and understanding: Progressive profiling builds the entire picture for individual participants, showing you metrics like response time, participant rate, and testing history

Note 📝

Just because a participant isn’t a good fit for your current project, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t be helpful for another one. Thank them for their time, let them know why they weren’t selected for this study, and keep the door open for future projects.

2. Offer incentives to encourage participation

It’s up to you whether you want to offer incentives or not. On the one hand, offering incentives such as payment, vouchers, or covering expenses like hotel and travel costs for in-person research, can encourage participation.

On the other hand, participants can end up taking part solely in the hope of winning the incentive.

If you decide to give incentives, the type of incentive you offer should depend on how long the research will take and the type of participants you need.

Elba from League adds, “Depending on the characteristics of the end-users, one type of incentive could be more suitable than others. For example, Amazon gift cards are a great general option, meanwhile offering something from the service, such as a free premium trial, can be a good incentive for existing users.”

3. Build relationships with your target audience

However you record and track participants, remember to keep in touch with them regularly. This way, you can develop a Customer Advisory Board or community of users for research and feedback.

Nabeena Mali, Head of Product at BfB Labs, says they build relationships with their target audience to get feedback and generate ideas:

“As our user testing involves children, we have built strong relationships with local schools who have an interest in using our products,” Mali explains. “Not only do we work with them to test the product, but they are also involved in the co-creation workshops we run to generate ideas.”

A couple of things that help them strengthen their relationship with local schools: pairing up with schools that share their values, and making the entire UX research process fun and engaging for their young audience.

Thanks to the relationships they built, Mali says, “often the schools were more than happy to be involved in early pilots and even helped facilitate introductions to more parents.”

Keeping these best practices in mind when recruiting research participants for your UX research study will ensure you collate the perfect testing pool.

Next up: Participant recruitment methods

A solid participant recruitment process helps you find the ideal people for testing your product, ultimately giving you insights reflective of your user base. That’s precisely why you need to establish your objectives, find the right channels, design screener questions, and use the right methodology to find participants that match your user persona.

The question remains: What are the best methods for the job?

That’s exactly what we’re exploring in the second chapter of this participant recruitment guide.

Before you get started, we recommend using a tool like Maze Panel to make recruiting participants easier. Maze is a leading user research platform that empowers UX researchers to get game-changing user insights. Whether you need to conduct surveys, card sorting, or build a database of research participants with tools like Reach, Maze makes the process quick and easy.

Recruit the right participants, every time

With over 3 million vetted participants across 130+ countries, and 400 filters, Maze Panel makes recruitment easy.

Frequently asked questions about participant recruitment

How do I find the right participants for my research study?

To find the right participants for your research study, follow these steps:

  1. Outline research plans and goals
  2. Identify your ideal research participants
  3. Create effective screener question
  4. Identify recruitment channels and methods
  5. Onboard user research participants

Why do you need participants for UX research?

You need participants for UX research because you need real people to test your designs, be it a prototype or a product reiteration. There can’t be any UX research insights without respondents willing to complete your tests and give you insights into your design.