User research participation agreement — a template
Quick tip for solo UX researchers.
Little story!
I have not had any reason to create a Research Participation Agreement (RPA) before. I have always had it prepared and I simply distribute it to my research participants.
Currently, I am working on a project and I had to provide a Research Participation Agreement for the research participants. Since I have never created one before, I had to search for a template and could not find a simple one to use, so I decided to INVENT one.
What is the Research Participation Agreement?
Some persons may call this a consent form, and this is correct. A Research Participation Agreement (RPA) is a document stating details of your research project, information to be collected, rights as a research participant, compensation, etc.
It is distributed to research participants, who in turn, read through and agree/disagree to be a part of your research project.
How to create a simple Research Participation Agreement (RPA)
1. Title/Heading
I think every document has a title.
So you want to create a title or heading for the document so anyone reading can understand what the document is about.
Example:
PRAIZUX RESEARCH PARTICIPATION AGREEMENT
2. Introduction
This is usually just a small paragraph with details about your company or project and the participant.
Example:
This Research Participation Agreement (“Agreement”) is between {COMPANY NAME}(“Company name”, “us”, “our”) and the undersigned person or entity (“Participant”, “you”, “your”).
We are carrying out a qualitative research on our website in order to gain insights into how users engage with our website and us as an organisation.
This research will be conducted by our UX Research resource {user researcher name}.
In consideration of your agreeing to participate in the Research, {COMPANY NAME} and you agree as follows:
3. Breakdown of the agreement
Here, you want to provide short paragraphs with headings on the breakdown of the agreement.
Your breakdown should cover details about;
Information collected during the research — Here you’re explaining what type of information will be collected during the research. Information includes audio, video recordings, notes taking, and every other form you’ve gotten information from the participants.
Information Usage — What do you intend to do with the information? How are you storing the information? Will share information gotten with 3rd parties, is the information gotten to be used for public purposes?
You really want to be clear on what exactly and how exactly you will manage the information gotten from the participants.
Ownership of the information — This is closely related to the point above. You want users to understand if they have any form of ownership or rights with the information you’ve gotten from them. Who owns this information gotten. Can they request for their information to be deleted? This should be done in line with your information security policy as a company and as a freelancer you want to be sure you follow the data protection policy for your country.
Voluntary participation — Explain to participants about their rights to participants. Expressly tell them this is voluntary and they have every right to withdraw their participation at any time.
Incentives — If you’re providing incentives to participants, state this here and the kind of incentives they will be receiving.
4. Closing Paragraph
In this paragraph, you clearly state the terms on which they are providing their information and agreeing to sign the document.
By signing this Agreement and participating in Research, you agree to (i) comply with the terms of this Agreement; (ii) provide true, correct, and complete information about yourself; and (iii) ensure that you engage with the Research in an honest, transparent, and good-faith manner.
5. Agreement and Signature
This is the end of the long document. Provide participants a place to provide their name, date, email, and signature.
I usually keep it simple and end the document this way;
ACCEPTED & AGREED;
I have read and understood this Agreement. I agree to participate in the Research in accordance with this Agreement.
PARTICIPANT’S NAME
SIGNATURE
DATE
This is the simplest and shortest way I created a Research Participant Agreement (RPA) when I had none.
NB: Please note, if you work with an organization, or as a consultant, you should work with your legal team or lawyer to validate what you have written in your document and provide corrections where there are clauses. As a freelancer, you should also work with a lawyer to validate your RPA, to provide corrections if there are any clauses.
In general, it is always good to have a second eye look at documents like this, before you send them out.
I hope this helps you with your next project.
You can get the exact template I use here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FwXTx02KLU-msfVPFg6VFDIZog0kdSzTpCPcaGrLaaY/edit
