For some projects, your clients can be the best source of user research participants. When you’re looking for their employees, their members, or their customers, your clients are the best source for lists of potential participants. Also they often have a relationship with these potential participants. They may know them personally, or at the very least they are associated with a company with which the potential participants have a relationship. When people get a request to participate in a user research study, they are more likely to pay attention to it, and seriously consider it, if it comes from someone they know or at least if it comes from a person in a company they do business with.

However, there are some perils of asking your clients recruit participants, including:

• They may not have the time or organizational skills it takes to recruit and schedule participants.
• They probably won’t describe the research correctly.
• They probably won’t know the right types of people to recruit.
• They may not schedule the sessions logically and effectively.
• They may give participants the wrong ideas about what they’ll be participating in.

In my latest UXmatters article, I describe these perils and provide tips to avoid them: The Perils of Client Recruiting.

Image credit: George Hodan