Ethics for involving human participants in user research

Unless observing public behavior without interaction and without recording, user research should be conducted with the following considerations:

• Informed consent
• Minimal risk
• Minimal deception (generally is not needed)
• Participant may withdraw at any time
• Participant's data is kept confidential
• Participant may withdraw his or her data from the study or test

The informed consent process should provide the following information:

• Purpose of the study
• What the participants will be doing
• That the participant may withdraw at any time
• How the results (and possible recording) will be used and how the participant's data will remain confidential
• That the participant may decide that his or her results will not be used

Oliver Burmeister's article provides a good review of these issues.

Also see Kuniavsky p. 219 for statement used in focus groups. Depaul's Institutional Review Board (IRB) for research involving human participants has a website.

Items for discussion

• Documenting consent with a signed statement
• Ways of ensuring informed consent
• Difference between confidential data and anonymous data
• How does the DePaul IRB information sheet address the process of informed consent?