Recruiting
Last Updated:
If you need to recruit Veterans, service members, caregivers, or dependents for a remote moderated study, Perigean can help with that. Recruiting for remote moderated sessions will take one week after your study is approved in the Research Review touchpoint. Some studies might take longer to find participants if you are looking for a niche population.
If you need to recruit VA staff, internal teams, or audiences not identified above, OCTO does not have a contract for that. Work with your stakeholders and product leads to identify and recruit these audiences.
Services offered by Perigean
Perigean is available to assist you with the following services:
Scheduling
Provide Perigean with times that are good for you and your team, and they'll schedule the sessions. A general rule of thumb is to provide 2x available time slots for the number of research sessions you desire. To ensure you get the number of participants you’re looking for, state your desired number and ask for ~25% more people than you need. This buffer will help account for no-shows. If the no-show rate is higher than expected, Perigean will continue to recruit and schedule until your desired number is reached. Sometimes, your study may need to be extended by a day or two to accommodate.
Note-taking
Perigean can take notes for your studies. Please indicate in your research plan if you need assistance with notes. This should be a fallback to having members of your team take notes.
You'll need to provide your conversation guide when you request research to have notes taken.
Perigean will send the notes via Slack. The lead researcher must collect the notes, conduct synthesis, and strip out ALL personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) before posting to GitHub or sharing.
Meeting tools
You have three technology options for remote studies. Perigean holds the accounts for each of these. You will use Perigean's accounts, not your own, and they will provide login details for each.
Zoom: This is the most accessible tool for users of assistive devices.
GoToMeeting: This tool is hard for participants to install but works well for handing mouse control to a user for a prototype usability test.
Webex: Teams building on VA.gov sometimes prefer Webex because it is an approved tool for their teams.
Please indicate in your research plan which tool you would prefer to use. We recommend setting up a practice session before your first session so you are familiar with logging into Perigean's tools, practicing handoffs, and practicing your conversation guide.
Learn more about Perigean’s recruiting process.
Recruiting for mobile studies
Ask Perigean to recruit people who visit VA.gov using a mobile device (specify if tablets are acceptable for your study). You can refer to these successful screener questions that might apply to your study.
If you're using the screen-sharing method:
Ask Perigean to walk the participants through:
Downloading the Zoom mobile app before entering the session
Enabling settings for screen sharing on their device
If you're using the laptop-hugging method:
Ask Perigean to recruit people who can use a laptop, tablet with a stand, or a webcam
Make sure Perigean recruits people who are comfortable using their laptop/tablet camera or webcam
Ask Perigean to have the participants:
Do a dry run of the laptop hugging method
Send an illustration, photo, or step-by-step instructions of how the laptop hugging works (placeholder for resources here)
Inclusive research
We want to make sure all users are represented in our research. The VA Recruitment Checker is a tool to help us keep track of who we've talked to.
This is a team effort, not an assessment of your skill. This checker will not be used to judge anyone's ability as a researcher. It's meant to be used as a tool to create a more mature and aware, inclusive research practice. We're committed to making VA services inclusive of underserved Veterans, and documentation is the first step toward that goal.
Why check on underserved Veterans in research?
It keeps us honest and transparent about whether our research includes underserved populations.
It helps us determine who we should conduct research with next
It prevents one-size-fits-all thinking. For example, if we didn't talk to Assistive Tech (AT) users, we can't be confident our research findings will apply to them.
Learn more about inclusive research strategies.
Referrals for research
If you meet a Veteran, caregiver, service member, or dependent who would be interested in participating in research, refer them to https://veteranusability.us/ .
Help and feedback
Get help from the Platform Support Team in Slack.
Submit a feature idea to the Platform.