research plan template

Draft Web Design Standards Research Plan: DATE

Introduction

We need to conduct product-specific, user-centered research for the .

The areas for product research generally fall into the following areas:

• Problem validation: What problems exist with the proposed solution?
• Customer validation: Who has this problem? What are their needs, motivations?
• Solution validation: How can the design be iterated to avoid these problems?

Assumptions

Target audiences

We need to recruit a representative sample of people who have visited or are likely to visit Draft Web Design Standards. These participants should be a <QUICK OVERVIEW OF PARTICIPANTS.

From that broad group, :

The point of contact for all recruitment is -

Research goals

The goals of the design team during this research phase will be to investigate the following:

What methods will we use?

The methods to be used during this research phase will be with individual users at .

<RESEARCH METHOD

Recruitment needs

Logistics checklist

For each location, the team will need to have the following items on hand:

• GSA-issued Macbooks
  • PC mouse
  • table, chairs
• Wi-Fi hotspot
• Recording device - Quicktime on the Macbooks

Day of testing protocol

1. (If in person) Research team should wear their government-issued badge and have it visible to the participant at all times.
2. Research team should be dressed in business casual attire.
3. Participants will need to sign a consent form (see attached). Scan and forward the signed ones to .
4. Research team should ensure that no PII data is captured. Participants should input fake data if needed.

What will we do when?

Below is the proposed schedule for sessions. Each session will last between 30 and 45 minutes.

Location (Arrive at Field Office by X:XX)

• NAME (Lead moderator)
  • email: first.last@xxx.gov
  • mobile: (xxx) xxx-xxx
• NAME
• NAME
• NAME

Schedule by day:

DAY DATE

• Pilot tests and logistics check

DAY DATE

• BREAK

DAY DATE

• BREAK

DAY DATE

• BREAK

LOCATION Field Office

STREET ADDRESS
CITY, STATE ZIP CODE POINT OF CONTACT Ph: PHONE NUMBER
Email: EMAIL ADDRESS Map: MAP LINK NOTE: SPECIAL LOCATION NOTE

Opening script (EDIT BASED ON PROJECT)

My name is [your name] and I'm working with on making improvements to the naturalization application.

We were hoping to grab between 30 and 45 minutes of your time to get your feedback on . If you have the time, we’d like to ask you to complete an activity that will show us where these improvements are working and where they are failing.

Your participation in this activity is completely voluntary, and we will not ask for more than 45 minutes of your time. If at any time you'd like to end our session, that is your right and we will gladly wrap things up.

Are you interested in participating?

YES or NO checkpoint

• If Yes - Continue
• If No - Thank them for their time and excuse yourself.

Thank you again for agreeing to participate. I will be moderating this session and you will notice others joining the session, as well. They are observing the session and taking notes to ensure we don’t miss anything.

With your permission, we will be audio taping these sessions. The information that is captured will only be used for evaluation, research and training purposes and will not be shared outside of the project team. Is it OK for me to begin recording now?

We will take the following precautions to keep your responses anonymous:

• We will not write your name on our interview notes
• We will not label our recordings of our interview with your name.
• We keep the list of people we interviewed, our notes, and the recording in a secure place where only team members can access it.
• We will not ask for, or collection, any information that easily identifies you.

This consent form summarizes this information. [Hand over consent form.]

At the bottom, you can choose whether we may share quotes from your interview. Unless you give us permission, we will not share any quotes from your interview (even anonymized ones) outside our project team. If you’re open to us sharing quotes in reports to our project team or in blog posts that describe our project, check the box below the signature lines.

Take a few minutes to read over the consent form and sign the consent form. Feel free to ask me any questions that come up!

Do you have any questions for me before you get started? You can also ask questions at any point during the interview.

Description script

[INTERNAL ONLY] Goals: <GOAL(S) of RESEARCH>

[INTERNAL ONLY] Link to Test

Task #:

Starting Point -

Pre-task Question

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