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Recruiting for User Research

General

All teams working on the Veteran-facing Services Platform are required to follow the DSVA process for screening participants for any research study related to the Veteran-facing Services Platform.

How to screen participants

DSVA uses Optimal Workshop to host its recruiting screener. This allows us to collect responses in an organized way and allows us to report PRA "burden hours" (as required by law) for the screener form.

Request to use recruiting screener

  1. File a Github issue in the va.gov-team repo with the following information:
    • Title: Request recruiting screener for research study
    • Labels:
      • research
      • external-request
      • [your team's Github label], e.g., "BAH-526"
    • Assign the issue to: [your DSVA contact]
    • In the comments field:
      • VFS team requesting a recruiting screener.
      • Team name is [your team's name], e.g., "BAH"
      • Working on [the name of your team's project], e.g., "526 forms"
      • For this research study: [name of the research study], e.g., "Round 1 research for 781 form"
  2. Within 2 business days, DSVA will update the Github issue with a link to the recruiting screener personalized for your team's use.
    • Github will send a notification to the person who created the issue. This will be your signal to start using the screener.
    • If the Github issue isn't updated with a screener link within 2 business days, reach out to your DSVA contact.

Recruit participants

  1. Send the recruiting screener link out to potential participants.
  2. Decide how long you want to run the screener, e.g., 1 week, 2 weeks, etc.
  3. At the end of that period, update the same Github issue by adding a comment with the following information:
    • Please export the responses for this screener: [link to the screener].
    • Send the responses to this email address: [email address]
    • Note: the email address must be an official work email address associated with the external company working on the specific project, e.g., somename@bah.com
  4. Within 2 business days, you will receive an encrypted email with the screener responses.
    • If you don't get a response within 2 days, reach out to your DSVA contact.
  5. Choose potential participants from the screener responses and continue with your normal recruiting process (i.e., setting up dates/times, etc.)
    • VFS teams: See tips below.
    • Note: If you need specific participant types (e.g., Veterans with a MyHealtheVet account), call potential participants and ask them via phone. Questions asked via phone are not subject to PRA, so you can use a phone call to narrow your participant pool to the exact participant types you need.

Tips

  • Start recruiting at least 2 weeks before you plan to run the research sessions.

  • Be sure your recruiting pool includes the kinds of Veterans you need for this study.

  • VFS teams are responsible for their own recruiting. If your team doesn't have in-house recruiters for user research, you can

    • Hire a recruiting firm to assist you.
      • If you haven't done so already, talk to your COR about how to do this.
    • Try recruiting Veterans at Veteran-focused events.
    • If you have relationships with any VSOs, contact them to see if they can help you recruit Veterans.
    • Try recruiting Veterans through your own social networks.

  • See some examples of recruiting emails at different points in the recruiting process (after completing the onboarding steps, you’ll be able to see this content).