Build a greater understanding of who you’re working with and how they experience the situation you’re addressing. Research is vital to a successful project and a mutually beneficial collaboration.

Practice comprehensive and exhaustive recruitment  

Once you’ve established the goals and objectives of a research initiative, it’s important to carefully define the audience for the product or service you’re developing and then to take the time needed to recruit from that audience.    

The key is to do research with people who will actually use your services. It’s counterproductive and potentially harmful to draw conclusions from research conducted with people who are not in the right demographic or target group, or who don’t share the experience or situation that the research aims to understand. 

Consider the unintended consequences of your recruitment approach. For example, recruiting via personal networks can lead to hearing only from people who share similar characteristics, experiences, or beliefs as yourself. Ask yourself whether these people are authentic representatives of the people who will ultimately use your product. Similarly, recruiting via social media can omit people who don’t have internet access at all. These issues are known as sampling bias.      

Even when your study targets the “general population”, take steps to recruit for a diversity of participants, rather than recruiting for convenience (which could potentially introduce sampling bias), or trusting to randomized recruiting. This might include taking steps to recruit and screen for specific groups—here is an incomplete list:    

• People with disabilities, who may or may not use assistive technologies    
• People with limited English proficiency, including newcomers to the United States   
• Members of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) community   
• People in communities that may have limited trust in the government   
• People with limited or no internet access, or who only use smartphones 
• People in rural communities 
• Veterans   
• Older adults    
• People who are formerly incarcerated    

For long-term success, invest in relationships with communities and community organizations to establish a collaborative partnership.   

Compensate fairly 

It’s important to pay research participants and community collaborators for the value they bring to your work. At the Bureau, members of the public who participate in research are almost always paid for their time. Exceptions include employees of institutions either regulated by the CFPB or who work with the CFPB as well as federal employees participating on government time.    

Compensation models should consider the additional costs some might incur to participate in research. This might include time off from work, childcare, and transportation costs.   

If you are working with or for a federal agency, depending on the structure of your research, compensation may have implications for the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). Be sure to consult your agency guidelines.    

Consider other forms of compensation that have value to the people or community you are researching if you can’t pay them or they decline payment. Some examples of what you could offer: 

• Curated package of agency resources tailored to the participant’s needs   
• Technical assistance in the form of trainings or webinars on topics relevant to the participants   

Take care not to harm participants through compensation   

Note at least two ways in which compensation can be problematic:  

• Undue influence: The amount or type of compensation should never influence people to participate against their better judgment or provide inauthentic responses.  
• Coercion: Compensation for research is not inherently coercive, since it does not involve a threat of harm. However, compensation can create coercive situations. For example, if a third party is paid for a subject’s participation, that third party can make an overt or implicit threat of harm or negative consequences to get the subject to participate to obtain payment.  

Obtain informed consent  

Informed consent is a person’s or community’s permission to participate in a study or design activity with their full knowledge of possible consequences—both good and bad. People must be able to consent free of coercion or undue influence and understand what they are agreeing to. They should also be aware of what information will be collected as part of the activity and how their information may be used or shared.  

In practice, this means the participant should be provided the following information before they agree to participate:     

• An overview of the nature of the research, the topics covered, and how the research will be conducted    
• The types of information you may record (including audio or video) or collect, and how you will use the information  
• How you will share the information collected   
• That the participant has control over their participation and can stop research at any time   

There may be additional privacy notice requirements if personally identifiable information (PII) is collected from people. Be sure to consult your agency guidelines and privacy team.  

Make consent forms clear   

Participants must understand what they’re agreeing to. Make sure that consent forms are written using plain language guidelines. Avoid unnecessarily complex terms or legalese.   

Collect only the bare minimum of information  

Collect, record, and share only the bare minimum of information needed to accomplish the goals of your research, and carefully safeguard that information. See the section below on data handling for more information.   

Consent is not permanent 

Once you’ve obtained a participant’s agreement at the beginning of a research session, continue to ask for consent as needed during the research itself. Participants may not have fully understood the implications of what topics might be covered, and specific questions or issues might hit a nerve.   

Anticipate sensitive questions or topics as best you can, and look for signs of trauma. Be prepared to ask your participant if they’d be willing to talk about a topic, and if they’re not, move on, or end the research activity as needed. Note that even if the participant chooses to end research sessions early, they should still be paid for their time.    

Check your biases before starting research 

As part of beginning the project for which you’re conducting research, your team should have spent time uncovering biases using exercises such as frames of reference. If you have not taken those steps yet, consider doing them before conducting research activities. 

Be aware of how bias can show up during research   

Research is the primary time when your team will interact directly with the people you are serving. For the research to be as useful as possible, it’s important to consider how bias can show up during the research process. Whether in choosing who participates, what information is collected, or how information is interpreted, there’s always a potential for bias to limit or skew the work. You will not be able to eliminate the potential for bias, but recognizing and proactively working to mitigate it will improve the credibility of your research and design.   

Some specific biases worth noting:   

• Sampling bias: Research participants are chosen in a way that is not representative of the intended population. For example, recruiting research participants via personal networks can lead to hearing only from those who share similar values or experiences to yourself. Likewise, recruiting via social media can omit people who don’t have internet access.    
• Social desirability bias: Participants answer questions or give feedback to conform to how they want to be viewed by others. For example, a research participant may say they like a prototype they don’t understand, for fear of being perceived negatively if they admit otherwise.    
• Interview bias and confirmation bias: Researchers may seek or favor information confirming their own prior beliefs and assumptions. For example, a sighted researcher may not think about the needs of people with low vision when conducting research. Or, a researcher may consciously or subconsciously shape research results to support initial product design decisions. 

Handle data and stories with care  

Handle the data and information gathered from participants carefully. Many underserved and underrepresented communities have historically had difficult experiences with the federal government. Safeguarding their PII and complying with your organizational data management, privacy, and security standards are important to ensure participants are not vulnerable to further harm from mishandling of their data, such as a privacy breach.   

PII is information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual.

When it comes to collecting PII from participants, best practices are as follows:    

• Collect only the bare minimum needed to accomplish your research. In practice, most PII, such as names or faces, are not needed and should not be collected. Other PII, such as participants’ voices, may be recorded for internal use only.    
• Anonymize and aggregate information collected from participants before it’s stored. For example, give each participant a code number (e.g., P01, P02) before saving and storing their data. Refer only to those code numbers, even in your notes, unless you have explicit consent to otherwise collect and store PII. Even if you do have such consent, take all steps necessary to safeguard the stored data.    
• Limit access to anonymized data to those conducting the research.    
• Delete data containing PII once it’s no longer needed.   
• Consult with your privacy team before conducting research to ensure compliance with federal standards, including those of your organization.  

Recognize and respond to trauma in participants 

Trauma is an event, a series of events, or a set of circumstances experienced by an individual or group as emotionally or physically harmful, which can have lasting effects on their sense of well-being. Research sessions may touch on difficult or sensitive topics. Familiarize yourself with the Four Rs framework to avoid re-traumatizing a person.    

FURTHER READING

Much of this guidance is based on well-established research and resources from experts. If you are interested in learning more about trauma and trauma-informed/responsive practices, read this comprehensive report on trauma-informed approaches created by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA). 

Related pages

• Overview
• Setting the foundation
• Design and development