Reaching Out to Disability Communities
To perform inclusive research, you have to be intentional about how and whom you recruit. These tips and considerations for recruiting people with disabilities as research participants focus on relationship-building with disability communities.
You just got buy-in from your stakeholders for inclusive research. Here’s what comes next.
Participant Outreach and Recruitment
There are some important areas to consider when recruiting people with disabilities.
You will likely need to dedicate time and work to sourcing potential participants with disabilities. To find people with disabilities who are willing to participate in research, we recommend you connect with disability-serving organizations and nonprofits. A Google search could give you an idea of organizations in your location, or organizations that focus on an area of interest to your work. These organizations might be able to connect you with participants with disabilities for your research. We recommend that you develop partnerships with organizations that are always mutually beneficial. Make sure you understand what sort of work the organization can do to help disseminate your calls for research participants, and provide clear information and parameters about your research.
You will also need to think about how many people you want to recruit and which disabilities you should target for your research. As with any study, your sample group will depend on the questions you are trying to answer. One approach is to include some people with disabilities in every study you run, to make sure that your sample is representative of the population. Another approach might be to run targeted research including only people with disabilities. For instance, if you want to gain an understanding of how screen reader users experience your product, you would likely only recruit people who use that particular assistive technology.
As you think about who you want to recruit, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Broaden Your Recruitment Criteria
In research, you have to be flexible. In inclusive research, even more so. As you incorporate more participants from underinvested communities, here are a few examples of ways you may need to broaden your recruitment criteria:
- Employment status. If you are recruiting professionals for a study, keep in mind that people with disabilities are less likely than people without disabilities to be employed. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2019, 19.3% of people with disabilities were employed. In contrast, people without disabilities were employed at 66.3%. Consider expanding your recruitment criteria to account for non-traditional forms of work, so that your study does not inadvertently exclude participants with disabilities who may not be working because of systemic barriers.
- Socioeconomic status. This might play a role in the kind of devices to which people have access. For instance, someone who has a disability and is unable to work because of that disability might have an old, outdated computer, which may mean that they are unfamiliar with the technology and experiences you are researching. This may also make it difficult for them to find out about the study you are running. Make sure that your recruitment criteria do not unintentionally exclude people of different socioeconomic statuses by reaching out to an array of participants and loosening requirements where needed.
Use Different Mediums to Find Participants
Your recruitment platform may not store data on users’ disabilities, at which point you will have to get creative about reaching potential participants. To connect with people with disabilities, try:
- Advertising on social media.
- Reaching out to your current network.
- Connecting with organizations and programs run for and/or by people with disabilities.
- Building your own accessibility research panel.
- If you have the budget, engage vendors that can help recruit people with disabilities (we have had great experiences working with organizations like Lighthouse for the Blind, Fable Tech Labs, and Access Works).
Make Your Recruitment Language Accessible
Create recruitment materials in clear, understandable language. This ensures that your study is more accessible — not just to people who have difficulty processing dense language due to cognitive impairments, but also to people with lower education and/or literacy levels, and people who speak a different native language.
Be Sensitive While Recruiting and Screening
Keep in mind that asking about disabilities can be sensitive for folks — for good reason! Here are some important things to be aware of:
- Some people might not want to disclose a disability because it feels like private information.
- Some people might fear discrimination.
- Some people might want to avoid re-traumatization or triggers associated with disabilities.
- Some people with invisible and/or non-apparent disabilities might not discuss them openly.
- Some people might not identify as being disabled.
Understanding how to screen appropriately for people with disabilities requires researchers to weigh these considerations. If you need to ask about disabilities during the screening process, make sure you do so respectfully. Never force potential participants to disclose their disabilities, and be sure to treat restricted data in accordance with standards like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), if applicable.
Build Trust with Participants with Disabilities
In your recruitment call, you can specify that you are seeking people with disabilities. However, it’s valuable to note that people with disabilities may or may not be inclined to accept invitations for research. Be open to using any feedback or rejections, as these might help refine your approach.
Participant Outreach in the Business-to-Business (B2B) Space
The enterprise space may require you to use different avenues to find participants with disabilities. When recruiting for user research in the B2B space, a common path to participants is to engage your customers. Here are a few ways to connect with people with disabilities in the B2B space:
- Leverage customer success managers. Reach out to customer success managers or people with a similar customer contact role to find out which customers, if any, have brought up accessibility or inclusion-specific concerns. This is a great opportunity to show these customers that your company wants to solve their problems with a people-first process.
- Connect with Employee Resource Groups. To reach specific underinvested communities, you can connect with customers’ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). For example, a People with Disabilities ERG can act as a direct path to potential participants.
- Speak with customer accessibility teams. Customer accessibility teams can be a channel to employees who use assistive technology. You can also conduct research directly with customer accessibility teams to understand their holistic approach to providing accommodations at work.
Screening for Participants with Disabilities
We’ve compiled a few examples that show how we’ve approached screening for participants with disabilities. Feel free to adapt this language to your own studies, if it’s helpful. As with all the information we offer, please note that we are not lawyers, and these suggestions should not be interpreted as legal guidance. It is important to understand that collecting information about disabilities comes with ethical and legal considerations. Please create a plan to ensure personal information protection, and consult with your company’s legal team for further guidance before recruiting participants with disabilities.
Remember to:
- Use inclusive language.
- Make screener questions about disability optional.
- Allow the option for multiple selections if asking participants to select from a list of disabilities and/or assistive technologies.
- Explain why you are asking about sensitive topics like disabilities and how the collected information will be used.
- When possible, explain the impact your research will have on the product. It’s important to make it known that the participation of people with disabilities has a purpose — inclusive research isn’t just to check off a box.
- Do not ask about ability status if it is not relevant to your study. Avoid asking people to talk about potentially sensitive topics, if not strictly necessary, and collecting more data than necessary.
As always, ensure you are recruiting the right people for your study. Some caregivers may consider themselves qualified to speak on behalf their care receivers. You may want to add a question where caregivers can identify themselves as such, so you can differentiate as you recruit participants.
Sample Screeners
These are examples of how to approach questions about disabilities in your screeners. Feel free to borrow and adapt whatever is useful to you.
Sample Introduction
Hi! Our organization [Company Name] is conducting a study to better understand the needs of people with disabilities/people who use assistive technology. This survey allows us to gauge your eligibility for this research.
If you are eligible and choose to participate, you will receive [insert thank you gift details]. We will also subsidize travel costs for the participants and personal care assistants with [insert additional reimbursement/voucher details].
Sample Questions About Disability
At [Company Name], we believe diversity of thought and experience strengthens our teams and allows us to create better products and services. The following questions help us to ensure that we meet with and gather feedback from users with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Do you identify as having a disability?
- Yes
- No
- No, I identify as culturally Deaf
- Prefer not to answer
What type of disability or disabilities do you identify as having? (Select all that apply.)
- Blind/low vision
- Deaf/hard of hearing
- Cognitive disability/ neurodivergent
- Physical disability/reduced mobility
- Prefer to self-describe (please specify)
- Prefer not to answer
Do you use any assistive technologies when using phones or computers?
- Yes
- No
- Not sure
- Prefer not to answer
(If Yes or Not sure) What assistive technologies might you use? (Select all that apply.)
- Screen reader (like JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, TalkBack, ChromeVox)
- Screen magnification (like ZoomText, Magic, browser zoom)
- High contrast mode
- Voice recognition software (like Dragon Naturally Speaking)
- Switch access device
- Adaptive or alternative keyboard
- Keyboard-only use
- Eye gaze control
- Not listed (please specify)
- None of the above
- Prefer not to answer
We hope these resources help to answer some of the questions you may have about respectfully engaging with people from the disability community. Always remember to be open to feedback and to adapt these resources according to the needs and parameters of your research.
Ready for more?
Now that you’ve built connections, it’s time to prepare for the research!
