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business plans, so some of the stipulations may not apply. On occasion I've seen a user back out of a
usability test due to discomfort over an imposing legal document. If users must sign an NDA, ask if it's
possible to use a simplified version that merely prohibits users from discussing what they see until the
product is released.
Payment for Users
Users who have no association with your company will expect some sort of payment for their time.
Expect the compensation to be in proportion to the specialization of the expertise you're looking for. In
one Boston-area study in 2002, I paid network administrators $125 for a 1-hour usability test of a
specialized Web application, and in another study I gave consumers $75 for a 90-minute test of a travel
Web site. Talk to a market research firm to find out the going rate in your area and whether
nonmonetary gifts are appropriate—a bottle of good wine might be appreciated in one culture but taboo
in another. Those little marketing giveaways (a key chain or coffee mug with your corporate logo) are
nice extras, but they're not a substitute for more substantive compensation.
Users are entitled to their full payment simply by virtue of showing up on time, even if you discover that
a person does not meet the screener (that's the fault of the recruiter, not the participant). I like to pay
users at the start of the session—it starts things off on a pleasant note, and I believe that it may reduce
the perceived pressure to perform—but usability specialists are still debating the merits of paying before
versus after, and as of this writing neither approach is considered wrong.
Decide on the form of payment before recruitment begins. Many participants expect cash by default. If
you are paying with a check or gift certificate, make this clear up front in case the user is expecting to
use the cash for cab fare home. Consider reimbursing users for transportation or parking if those
expenses are non-trivial. Unless you plan to pay users more than a few hundred dollars, you probably
don't need their tax ID number, but double-check this with your Accounting department. When I use
cash payments, I have each user sign their name, date, and amount received on a sheet of paper,
which serves as a record of what happened to all that cash.
So far I've been discussing test participants who have no association with your company. But payment
may not be appropriate if users are employees or customers of your company or if they work for a
government or industry that regulates the maximum gift that can be accepted—even a coffee cup may
be considered too valuable (I wish I was joking about that, but I'm not). Talk with your Human
Resources or Sales department to determine what is appropriate for the user profile you've selected.
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