Everyone’s invited! A series of case studies on inclusive research methods
By Ellie Buckley, Zaynah Hawa, Kesta Kemp, and Farhana Yeasmin
As user researchers we try to accurately record and represent people’s experiences, so that we can put users at the heart of the products and services we create. Our research methods need to be inclusive so that we can engage with the widest range of users and this can then feed into inclusive design. In some cases, capturing users’ experiences can be complex, as the people we are trying to engage with have a range of access needs. In this article we talk about what it means to do inclusive research and share some of our experiences and challenges when using inclusive research methods with the hope that this inspires you to apply these approaches to your own research.
Inclusive design describes methodologies used to create products that understand and enable people of all backgrounds and abilities, and inclusive research should be part of this process. Inclusive design is often seen as an ethical or moral responsibility. However, it also makes sense on a business level as it extends the reach that a service or product can have. Whilst inclusive design is often seen as thinking about the minority, the world health organisation estimates that 16% of the global population experience “significant disability” and that almost everyone will temporarily or permanently experience disability in their life, and inclusive design goes much further than thinking only about disabled users. Inclusive research and design aims to target all of the potential users of a product or service, as Kimberly Mak states “It’s an impossible mission when we set out to design a solution for everyone”, but researchers should endeavour to be as inclusive as possible to then allow designers to understand the spectrum of user needs.
If a study requires participants to complete an online survey, those who have limited internet access or who are not comfortable using technology may be excluded. You may need to consider alternative ways of gathering data, such as in-person interviews, paper surveys, or phone calls. Another challenge is ensuring that research materials are accessible to participants with disabilities. For example, written surveys may not be accessible to participants with visual impairments. Researchers may need to provide alternative formats, such as audio or braille versions of surveys. Similarly, online surveys should be designed with accessibility in mind, including features such as alternative text descriptions for images, keyboard accessibility, and compatibility with screen readers.
Research is not only open to interpretation and different styles based on the researcher and the scenario, but we are researching in an ever-changing environment and at its core, research is an iterative process that we can — and should — adapt as we learn more. This can help improve not just the service or the product we are building, but also the research methods themselves. In this article, we’ll explore some of the challenges and successes of making our research methods inclusive to participants with differing access requirements through a series of case studies. We hope through sharing our experiences and what we’ve learned we can improve each other’s work and ultimately benefit the users of the products and services we’re helping to develop.
Ways to engage with neurodivergent participants
About the Researcher: Ellie
Ellie has a background in healthcare and disability, and she is particularly passionate about accessibility, co-design and inclusive research, and helping to create equitable services and products. Ellie was conducting research looking at how neurodivergent people access the workplace. She was aiming to speak to users with a variety of accessibility requirements and so needed to adapt her methods to try and include as many users as possible.
I was running a research project to examine the experiences of autistic people accessing work and workplace support. Autism is characterised by differences and/or difficulties in social communication and interaction, meaning that autistic people may not respond typically to social interaction, may need more time to process and respond to speech, and also find some methods of communication difficult (e.g. speaking on the phone can be more anxiety-inducing than in-person conversation for many autistic people). It is also estimated that 70% of autistic people have an additional neurodevelopmental condition. For example, having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and/or dyspraxia, alongside their autism. Around 30% of autistic people also have co-occurring intellectual disability (ID).
Build flexibility into the research design
This meant that I had to be considerate of the varying access needs of my participants and facilitate research that was as adaptive and inclusive as possible. With this in mind I planned to conduct one-to-one interviews and tried to build flexibility into the research method wherever possible. For example, I offered interviews in-person, through video-chat, phone, or by text-based chat to suit people’s communication preferences. I also encouraged participants to move around and/or stim (using repetitive movements to self-soothe) if they wished, so that they could maintain focus on the interview.
Typically in research, we don’t let people see our interview questions ahead of time so that we can observe people’s initial responses to the topics posed, and avoid interviewees giving overly rehearsed answers. Some autistic people need more time to process and respond to speech, so with this in mind, I sent my interview questions ahead of time to everyone to give them a chance to look at the questions and prepare answers. I adapted the interviews for the participants with intellectual disability into Easy Read format, simplifying the language and speaking concisely.
Doing this research taught me that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and that methods that were accessible to some participants did not work as well for others. Building as much flexibility into your research methods as possible is key for conducting inclusive research.
Including users with language and literacy barriers
About the Researcher: Zaynah
Zaynah began her career in the public sector on projects that supported digital roll-outs of hardware and software to internal colleagues. This included delivering one to one training sessions with users of assistive technology with empathy and compassion. Following that, she became a user researcher, and the importance of involving and supporting those with assistive technology needs and access barriers became a solid a part of her research planning.
During the implementation of a digital solution for a central government department, we learnt in the discovery phase of a digital solution we were implementing for a central government department that many users faced access barriers due to language barriers, low literacy levels, and low digital confidence. Our primary and secondary research confirmed that these users represented a significant portion of the total user group, allowing us to go into each stage of the service lifecycle assessing and adapting our user research methods to drop any barriers to ensure these users were continually included.
The right measures at the right time
Recruiting participants with these specific needs was a challenge. This is where planning and reviewing your research in advance is key. We highlighted the limits of the method, and subsequently how we would mitigate those to accommodate for all our users while still getting robust user insights. The result of this step meant we were able to:
1. Offer research sessions in the language of the users with the help of an interpreter service.
2. Allow participants to bring a family member or friend to interpret during the session.
3. Conduct research sessions over the phone to expand participation and ease any anxiety related to technology use.
4. Test our offline (telephone) service, primarily used by those with digital or language barriers, with both the real users and internal call-centre staff before the service went live.
Overall, this case study highlights the importance of including diverse user groups with varying access needs in the research process. It also demonstrates that with the right measures in place, put in at the right time, it is possible to ensure that these users are not excluded and are able to contribute to the research effectively, resulting in a sound product.
Sharing our findings about the needs of our user group with the design and communications teams enabled us to take this into account when creating both the service and any content or material designed for the end user. It resulted in eradicating certain designs and features that were deemed difficult such as complex questions, as we knew those with language barriers would struggle to proceed accurately. It also allowed for the creation of an offline route available to those who would still struggle with an online service. The service is now live and performing extremely well as demonstrated by high customer satisfaction scores and reduced calls to the call centre staff.
Understanding your users in their context
About the Researcher: Kesta
Within her work as a researcher, Kesta has worked on multiple projects which involve vulnerable users and focused on topics of a sensitive nature such as health and sexuality. This has meant she has always been interested in adapting traditional research methods and exploring more creative approaches.
I worked on a project which was exploring how to support disabled individuals and individuals with a health condition to stay in or return to work and access the support they need. As part of this work, we conducted both generative one-to-one user interviews and evaluative usability testing with individuals who had various accessibility requirements.
To start with, we conducted these sessions remotely using Microsoft Teams. We made sure to be clear to participants to ask for support in joining the session if they needed it, to take breaks as and when they felt that would be beneficial, and to bring someone to the session if it would make them more comfortable. However, we quickly found that whilst we were exploring accessibility and inclusivity, our approach was still relatively restrictive.
Meet your participants where they are
This manifested in a number of ways across the research. For some the nature of the session, in sitting down at their laptop for an hour, was difficult and uncomfortable. This was especially clear for individuals who had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a condition that can make it difficult to maintain attention on tasks for long periods of time. It was also evident when conducting usability testing with individuals who used assistive technologies, such as text-to-speech software or light-adjusting systems, that we were missing a lot of insight around the big picture, from solely seeing their screen. We wanted to know what their whole set-up was like, what other techniques they may use to make things more accessible to them that they didn’t think were important to tell us. For example, we spoke to one individual who had found the perfect angle of their lamp compared to their screen brightness and tones, which allowed them to find the perfect balance for their vision.
This experience so far has shown us that it would be more effective if we could be more flexible in our research design. Ideally, we should offer different formats of conducting research that meets the participants where they are, rather than expecting them to adjust to our own research context. This may involve in-person testing in their own environments, longer-term observation work, or enabling walking/moving interviews if this suits the participant more than sitting still. Currently we are looking at what this may look like in practice and learning how to make them effective for both participants and us as researchers.
Adapting research for digital literacy and access
About the Researcher: Farhana
As a researcher, Farhana has a number of interests, but has previously worked in the charity sector conducting research on energy and benefits policy. Currently working on supporting the creation of a new government service, her interests lie in making services as accessible and user friendly as possible by talking to users about what they need, and then helping to design systems that work for them.
I’ve been carrying out research with users to understand how they feel about a new service being developed by the government that is aimed at improving biodiversity. This case study is an example of some of the difficulties when trying to engage with users who either find it difficult to access online services or choose not to be online. For this service, one of the key users we were trying to speak to were farmers. The problem with trying to reach a user group who isn’t consistently online, is deciding how else to reach out to them.
Doing this meant drawing on our own resources first, by sharing panels used by other teams to reach out to farmers who had taken part in research for other services. It also meant reaching out to organisations such as the National Farmers Union to see if they could spread the word to farmers about taking part in our research.
In doing the usability testing with farmers, it meant having to understand that this user group consists of people who are reluctant to be online, and whose daily lives don’t facilitate them being online.
Not everyone can engage with online methods
Whilst testing, we realised that many farmers also live in areas where there is little internet and mobile coverage. Therefore, remote sessions were harder to run and mitigating against these issues meant doing things such as going off camera for most of the sessions. Travelling out to speak to farmers is also an issue for this reason, there is no guarantee that broadband would be available if we travelled to speak to users. As farmers are also stretched for time, it is unlikely they would be willing to travel a lab to take part in research.
Users that we spoke to also stated they used their digital devices for basic needs and entertainment, and most users used handheld devices such as their phones or tablets to join the sessions. This made things like screen sharing difficult as the format of the sharing software was different to that of a laptop or desktop.
Based on this research, we have concluded that future research with farmers who have lower digital access levels or a lower inclination towards being online might be better conducted by meeting the farmers where they are. Our plan, therefore, is to attend a farming event and carry out usability testing in the same way guerrilla research is conducted, in the hopes that these users are still able to take part in this valuable research.
Conclusion
User research is there to put users at the heart of the product or service we create and needs to happen as early as possible to inform the design. From our case studies we learnt that inclusive research requires us to continually examine our methods and consider the needs of all participants. One key lesson we have learned is the importance of involving participants with diverse accessibility needs in the research process. This ultimately leads to the creation of more accessible products and services that serve a diverse population. Creating inclusive research methods requires a willingness to be flexible, adaptable, and responsive to the needs of all participants. While there are challenges to designing inclusive research, there are also many successes and lessons learned that can guide us in our efforts. By working together and sharing our knowledge and experiences, we can continue to improve our research methods and better represent the diverse populations we study.
How are you making your research inclusive? We’d love to connect and hear about your experiences.
If you’d like to read more about this topic:
A great article asking what does it mean to be inclusive in UX research and its impact on people, with lots of helpful links included: https://uxdesign.cc/what-does-it-mean-to-be-inclusive-in-ux-research-89944576410d
The UK government’s guide to inclusive social research practices: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-guide-to-inclusive-social-research-practices/a-guide-to-inclusive-social-research-practices
