Human design centered hear

03/10/13

Recruiting Tools

Recruiting Tools

Recruiting the right participants is important to the success of your project.

Identify questions to ask to help you find a broad range of participants. Work to find people who represent a balance of gender, ethnicity and class as well as a full range of behaviors, beliefs and perspectives. Keep track of the people you have spoken with and those you plan to speak with. It is helpful to record information about the types of participants and the characteristics of groups and locations.

Time: 30-60 Minutes Difficulty: Moderate Materials: Pen Notepad Participants: interviewers interviewees The HCD Toolkit and all HCD methods are licensed under: Instructions for this Method www.hcdconnect.org/methods/recruiting-tools/print.html

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03/10/13

Recruiting Tools

1. Refer to Extremes & Mainstreams to help you develop the spectrum along which to recruit, identify locations for interviews and to recruit community contacts and participants.

2. Following your interviews, ask participants for help identifying others to interview. Use questions that help you find participants along the entire spectrum of your research.

3. Keep track of those you spoke with and plan to speak with by recording information for each group or individual interview. See Practical Pointers below for an example template. You’ll want to record: Group meeting location, village name, and any unique characteristics of the site (such as seasonal flooding). Also, Individual participant name, participant type (such as successful villager, person struggling to survive, large family with relatives in the city, female headed household).

Tips

Some communities may be resistant to male team members interviewing women. Make sure female staff help recruit and interview women. When interviewing women, interviewers may need permission from male family members or community leaders.

Group sessions are a great way to identify participants for the individual interviews. However, communities may want to showcase only the most successful constituents or male community members to your team.

Research with communities and individuals often involves issues of identity, power, and politics. To help think through these issues, use the Identity, Power & Politics Worksheet

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/recruiting-tools/print.html

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03/10/13

Community-Driven Discovery

Community-Driven Discovery

Consider recruiting members of the community to be the primary researchers, translators, designers or key informants for your project.

By asking respected community members to lead the research, your team will gain expertise, insight and perspective. The involvement of community members with strong relationships or a reputation for intelligence and fairness may help other participants to express their concerns openly and honestly. These research partners can also help interpret the meaning and motivations behind the statements of other participants.

Time: 2-4 Days Difficulty: Difficult Materials: Pen Notepad Participants: Design team Community members The HCD Toolkit and all HCD methods are licensed under:

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/community-driven-discovery/print.html

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03/10/13

Community-Driven Discovery

Instructions for this Method 1. Before starting a project using Community-Driven Discovery, work to understand the relevant dynamics and power relationships of participants. Community politics can sometimes transform your research project into a community battle for access to the resources of you and your team.

Even the incorrect perception of favoritism can be damaging to your project.

2. Identify a few people in the community who will be good members to have on the design team. Try to ensure that these individuals are trusted, respected members of the community, that they are fair and unbiased, and have no personal stake in the results of the design solutions.

3. Decide how you will compensate these individuals. Sometimes it will be appropriate to pay them a salary based on what other members of the design team are getting paid, while in other situations, non-monetary gifts are more appropriate. If you are uncertain, seek advice.

4. Integrate these community design team members at every point in the project, valuing their knowledge of the community dynamics and needs.

Tips

When identifying participants, it may be helpful to include people in the community who are particularly innovative or who have been doing things out of the ordinary in order to achieve success. Consider how might you partner with these individuals to inspire new solutions. Learn by leveraging their innovations and knowledge.

Check out the following tools for assistance designing your interview: Identity, Power & Politics Worksheet

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/community-driven-discovery/print.html

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03/10/13

Expert Interviews

Expert Interviews

If you need lots of in-depth or technical information in a short period of time, consider engaging an expert to supplement your primary research.

Others may have already done research relevant to your project. Experts can help you to learn about the history and context of a particular community or topic, understand the regulations that might affect design and implementation of solutions, or provide you with information about new or developing technologies.

Time: 1.5-3 Hours Difficulty: Easy Materials: Pen Camera Notepad Participants: Interviewers Interviewees The HCD Toolkit and all HCD methods are licensed under:

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/expert-interviews/print.html

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03/10/13

Expert Interviews

Instructions for this Method 1. Decide if an Expert Interview is the best way to get the information you need and identify the areas or topics that you would like to talk to experts about.

2. Find and recruit experts. Tell them about your project and the intended length of time you will speak with them. Try to speak with people who have different opinions on the topics to challenge the team to think in new ways.

3. Return to some of these experts during the Feedback portion of the project. Experts can be particularly helpful when there is something tangible for them to respond to.

Tips

Expert interviews are not a substitute for primary research with participants and communities. Experts can overstate their expertise or develop their own assumptions and biases that can stifle innovation.

If possible, interview experts with different points of view on a topic in order to balance out biases.

Remember that the real experts are the people you’re designing for. Don’t ask experts for solutions or take their ideas as the final solution.

Check out the following tools for assistance designing your interview: Identity, Power & Politics Worksheet

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/expert-interviews/print.html

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03/10/13

Extremes and Mainstreams

Extremes and Mainstreams

When recruiting participants, try to include opposite “extremes” and the “mainstream” in between, in order to hear a full range of behaviors, beliefs and perspectives.

A good balance includes equal numbers of three types of participants. One-third of participants might be the extreme who are successful, adopt new technologies quickly and exhibit desirable behaviors. One third may be the opposite extreme, those who are very poor, resistant to new technologies or exhibit problematic behaviors.

The final third represents the mainstream in the middle.

Time: 30-60 Minutes Difficulty: Moderate Materials: Pen Notepad Participants: Design team The HCD Toolkit and all HCD methods are licensed under: www.hcdconnect.org/methods/extremes-mainstreams/print.html

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03/10/13

Extremes and Mainstreams

Instructions for this Method 1. Determine the spectrum (or range) of participants you’ll recruit. Decide on several options (i.e. high income to low income, early adopter to risk averse, large landholder to landless). Narrow your options to one or two relevant spectrums to make sure “extremes” are covered in your research.

2. Identify locations to recruit participants. You may be able to ask stakeholders to list good areas for this research. Choose 2-5 varied field sites (i.e. a dry and a wet site or a site in a central district and one that is remote).

3. Select appropriate community contacts to help arrange community meetings and individual interviews. Make sure community contacts include men and women.

4. Throughout your interviews, ask participants for help identifying others you can speak with.

Tips

Extreme participants help to unearth unarticulated behaviors and needs of the rest of the population, but are easier to observe and identify because they feel the effects more powerfully than others.

As you work to identify a range of participants, consider the types of questions you might ask. If you are looking for participants along the economic spectrum you might ask: “Can you introduce me to a family who cannot afford to send their children to school or to a family who has been able to send all of their children to school?” “Can you introduce me to a family who has not been able to afford maintenance or repairs to their home?” “Can you introduce me to a family who has experienced a recent setback (medical problems, bad harvest, etc.) or to a family who has overcome a recent setback?”

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/extremes-mainstreams/print.html

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03/10/13

Phrase the Challenge

Phrase the Challenge

You can use this method to identify criteria, establish a point of view and write an appropriate Design Challenge.

Your challenge will guide the questions you ask in the field and the solutions you develop later in the process.

A good challenge is framed in human terms (rather than technology, product, or service functionality), with a sense of possibility. It is both broad enough to allow you to discover areas of unexpected value and narrow enough to make the topic manageable.

Time: 1-5 Hours Difficulty: Difficult Materials: Pen Notepad Participants: Design team Community leadership The HCD Toolkit and all HCD methods are licensed under:

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/phrase-the-challenge/print.html

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Phrase the Challenge

Instructions for this Method 1. Your design team will work with leadership and/or the people you are designing for, to identify a list of criteria for the challenge. Criteria might answer these questions: Does it need to fit into a certain timeframe? Does it need to have a geographical or topical focus? Does it need to fit into an existing initiative? Does it need to explore new opportunities?

2. Keeping these criteria in mind, make a list of the challenges people are facing.

3. Re-frame those challenges in a broader context and from the point of view of those you are designing for.

4. Choose the top two or three challenges based on your criteria. Work together to narrow the list to one specific challenge.

5. Write a succinct, one-sentence Design Challenge to guide the design team. Make sure to phrase the challenge in human terms with a sense of possibility. It is helpful to start the Design Challenge with an action verb such as “Create”, “Define”, “Adapt”, etc. Or phrase the challenge as a question starting with: “How can...?”

Tips

Example of a well-phrased design challenge: “Create savings and investment products that are appropriate for people living in rural areas.”

The challenge you choose may be related to adoption of new technologies, behaviors, medicines, products, or services. This might lead to framing a design challenge that is organization-focused, such as “How can we get people in villages to adopt savings accounts?” Instead, work to re-frame the challenge in a more human-centered way, such as “How can we create a financial safety net for people in villages?”

www.hcdconnect.org/methods/phrase-the-challenge/print.html

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