Resources

Ethics

Important Ground Rules:
● For online interviews, provide your interviewee with a link (e.g., Zoom link) to join an online meeting. Do not ask for their personal IDs (e.g., Skype ID).
● You are REQUIRED to obtain verbal consent from the participant before you conduct your interview. You must keep a spreadsheet, which has the participant name, date of interview, and participants' responses to each of the verbal consent questions. You must keep this spreadsheet separate from your interview data and securely stored for a minimum of 1 year. Participants are allowed to withdraw from the study at any time.
● Your interviewees must be adult (age 19+).

Recruitment:
You are encouraged to recruit through word of mouth (e.g., people you know, friends of friends) via a variety of channels (e.g., email, phone call, social media, chat interfaces such as Slack). When using social media / chat interfaces (e.g., Facebook group, Slack workspace), you should post only if the norm of the social media / chat group permits this type of study recruitment posts. If in doubt, first check with the social media / chat group owner before posting. You must use the following recruitment script in your email, phone call, or chat/social media post when recruiting participants.

Recruitment Script (Do not change!)

Phase 1 - Informational Interviews:
During phase 1 of the study (informational interviews), you are NOT PERMITTED to video or audio record the interview, so take good notes! With the user's permission, you can use anonymous quotations and pictures. Notes and images collected during this study (without identifying information such as names and faces) must be kept for a minimum of 1 year on a password-protected computer, data server and/or cloud service. You must obtain verbal consent from the participants using the following consent forms, and document the verbal consent responses in your participant spreadsheet.

Consent - In-Person Interview (Do not change!)

Consent - Online Interview (Do not change!)

Phase 2 - Prototype Evaluation:
During phase 2 of the study (prototype evaluation), with the user's permission, you can take audio and screen recording without any identifying information (e.g., names, faces). With the user's permission, you can use anonymous quotations and pictures. You can transcribe audio recordings, if you wish. Notes, images, screen recordings and audio recordings/transcriptions collected (again, without identifying information) should be kept for a minimum of 1 year on a password-protected computer, data server and/or cloud service. You must obtain verbal consent from the participants using the following consent forms, and document the verbal consent responses in your participant spreadsheet.

Consent - In-Person Prototype Evaluation (Do not change!)

Consent - Online Prototype Evaluation (Do not change!)

Manager Consent:
If you are conducting the interview at a workplace during work hours, then you will also need the permission of the manager before recruiting any participants for the interview or prototype evaluation. You must obtain verbal consent from the manager using the following consent forms, and document the verbal consent responses in your participant spreadsheet.

Consent - Manager (In-Person) (Do not change!)

Consent - Manager (Online) (Do not change!)

Thank You Letter:
After the interview, you should provide the user with the thank you letter below. User Study Thank You Letter (Do not change!)

User Study Thank You Letter (Do not change!)


Tools

We will be using a variety of tools to facilitate teamwork, design activities, and user interviews.


Slack - for announcements, questions, access to lecture videos, and private team chat (Mac and Windows Slack app)
Zoom - weekly team meetings, office hours, student presentations (Zoom client, Important Security Information)
Miro - for affinity diagramming, sketches and user flows, etc.
Figma - for wireframing and high fidelity prototyping (Tutorial)


Sample Deliverables

Sample Demo Videos: Spring 2019 (Click on "Projects")
Sample Blog Posts: example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4, example 5
Sample Writeup: example (includes value proposition, persona, empathy map, interview questions)