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Study participants will make or break an
experience sampling study.

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When the study is run, you are not there
to see what your participants do and

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correct it, if needed.

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Therefore, you need to take all the
necessary steps to

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make sure participants understand what is
asked of them and provide good answers.

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Here are four pointers for dealing with
participants.

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Set expectations, tell participants what's
expected of them.

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For example, if you expect them to answer
five notifications per day for

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three days, tell them exactly that.

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Explain that fewer responses do not help
you learn from them.

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Don't give them an example of a good
answer to the study question.

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Otherwise, you'll bias them and all you'll
get will be these types of answers.

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Stay vague.

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Tell them a good answer is one that you
can understand.

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That is detailed enough, and that doesn't
include one or two words.

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Practice, to make sure participants
understand what's required of them, and

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to test your notification mechanism,
schedule a practice test where you

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send one notification to participants and
they answer once.

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Do that a couple of days before the actual
study begins.

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This way,

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you'll have some time to make changes in
case something does not work as expected.

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This is a great opportunity to make sure
participants give you the answers you

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need, with enough level of detail.

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Incentivize, tell participants they

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will get an incentive if they meet your
answer quota or a little bit below that.

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If you can't pay participants with money,
be creative and

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think of other ways to provide an
incentive for participation.

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For example, dedicate a wall in your
office, or

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a page in your website, if you don't have
an office, to study participants.

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Call it the wall of fame and print their
names on it after they participate.

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Take a picture and share with each
participant.

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People love their name.

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Take advantage of it.

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Begin recruiting ASAP.

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I cannot stress this enough.

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Recruiting participants is the greatest
bottleneck of user research.

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Start as soon as you can.