In this Step, you will:

• Learn the right number of test participants to recruit for your test
• Understand the type of user you should recruit
• Decide whether or not you should offer an incentive

I'm not going to cover all the ins and outs of recruiting participants in this guide. There is another guide that covers recruiting in depth. Instead, this guide will provide you with recruiting information specific to usability tests.

Usability test recruiting tips:

• Recruit between 4 and 6 participants for each study. You may want to recruit an extra if you're doing a lab study, since those tend to have more no-shows than home visits or remote sessions.
• Find participants who have the necessary knowledge to complete your tasks. For example, if you are testing a product aimed at accountants, you will almost certainly need to have participants who understand the basics of accounting in order to appropriate test the product. However, if you're just testing a sign up flow, you may not need people with in depth knowledge of the space.
• Plan to run multiple studies with time between for iteration. In other words, recruit 4 to 6 participants within a couple of days of each other, and then plan to recruit another 4 to 6 after you've had a chance to fix the problems you find with the first set.
• Schedule each participant separately and leave at least 15 to 30 minutes between each session in order to process the information and reset the testing environment.
• Get the appropriate mix of current users of the product and new users. Always testing on either one or the other can skew the results. That said, if you're testing a registration flow, you probably only need people who haven't used the product before. If you're testing a new retention feature, you might want all current users.
• Offer an incentive to make it easier to recruit people. I cover appropriate incentives in the recruiting guide, but generally, you need to offer more for in person sessions or for hard to get participants. Incentives can range from a $10 gift card to $150 in cash for a one hour in home session.

• If you're offering a large incentive, use a screener to make sure that the people you're interviewing really fit the correct profile. Screeners are covered in more detail in the recruiting guide.
• If you have a very difficult to recruit type of participant, you can hire research recruiters to find the people for you. Typically this costs about $100-$200 per person recruited, and you need to be very specific about what you're looking for, but it can help cut recruiting times significantly.

Why Does This Matter?

The success of the study can often depend on testing the right sort of person. While it may be tempting just to test on coworkers or friends, you can end up with severely skewed results if you don't test with the sorts of people who will actually be using your product and who aren't biased in your favor.