The world has changed for everyone — not least of all UX and Design Researchers.
As your needs become more dynamic, and interviewee constraints more rigid, evolving your processes and technology are the only ways to fill the gaps.
This broad dynamic directly snapped into focus within the world of user interviews during the work-from-home revolution.
Who we are and what we do:
DeepBench is an expert network. While you may not be familiar with that term, interestingly, a large percentage of our customers come from the design research world!
In short, we leverage proprietary technology to recruit professionals for user interviews (Featured in Forbes)
In the user research world, DeepBench shines brightest when recruiting hard-to-reach B2B candidates for niche topics. For example: executives with unique perspectives on how to drive company culture, engineers who have deep experience in water treatment in Africa, or doctors focused on developing narcolepsy treatments. DeepBench helps connect you with any professional, regardless of industry, role or geography.
DeepBench is proud to call IDEO one of our top global clients. We’ve worked with many other design research firms, agile start-ups, as well as innovation groups within giant enterprises.
Our core value-add is sourcing, recruiting and vetting unique professionals for your interviews. We also handle scheduling & paying the participant. Our technology, team, and process gives you back the time to focus on what matters most — the insights from the interview itself.
Helpful resources for B2B user research:
Throughout our experience working with design researchers over the last few years, we have had to opportunity to take on some incredibly interesting projects. As we’ve learned more ourselves about what it takes to have a successful user interview, we’ve put together the following list of resources. We hope it helps.
Community:
- User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) — Broad and deep support for people who research, design, and evaluate the UX of products and services. Local chapters, member benefits, career resources and more.
- Research Ops Slack Community — This community centers around a Slack channel where industry professionals ask questions and share best practices. It also includes recorded town halls, ready to consume at your convenience.
Blog Posts & Quick Reads:
- Doing Global Design Research…from Your Couch, by Vicky Zeamer — A very timely read with some actionable advice on conducting user research from home.
- The Essential Guide to B2B Customer Research, by Anne Siig Blond — This guide to B2B customer research a great place to start — especially if you like using high level frameworks such as the Piñata vs. the Sherlock Holmes approach to help get your bearing.
- Challenges of user research in B2B product design, by Flavio Bezerra — Another helpful analogy: the Guerilla vs. the Political approach.
- How to recruit business users for B2B user research, by Peter Berre — Terrific article for recruiting B2B users within your client organization. He also gives some solid suggestions on where to find users online (i.e. private slack channels).
- Finding UX Research Participants, by Victor Yocco — A quick, well-structured article — he goes into his own DIY experience and the pros & cons of hiring 3rd parties to help recruit.
- For an interdisciplinary flavor, DeepBench created this guide for conducting expert interviews with the help of a few of our design research, management consulting, and investor clients.
Books & Longer Reads:
- UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products, by David Farkas and Brad Nunnally — A great resource if you are looking for something deeper and highly tactical.
- How to Recruit Participants for User Research, by Amanda Miller — Delves into topics such as screeners, demographics, timelines, incentive setting, and how many candidates to recruit.
Truth be told, DeepBench provides a service which some firms choose to do themselves. And depending on your budget & time constraints, the do-it-yourself option could work for you. Ultimately choosing how you recruit B2B user research participants is simply a time vs. money tradeoff.
Given DeepBench’s proprietary search technology and the flexibility our model affords, we would bet that the time we free up for your team is well worth the cost. Please continue reading to learn what we can offer and consider trying DeepBench and telling your friends!
The DeepBench model:
- We are a global solution — recruiting anyone, anywhere. We have 10,000+ vetted professionals in our network, but what distinguishes us is our ability to recruit new research participants on demand — usually within 1–2 days.
- There is no subscription cost to using our tools & services. Everything is pay as you go.
- We use advanced matching technology as well as crowdsourcing tools such our project bulletin board.
- We run a custom campaign for every project we receive, and typically have qualified advisors within 48 hours.
- Not only that, DeepBench always recruits on a contingent basis. We start the search for free. You see the results for free. You hop on the video call for free. You don’t pay until AFTER the interview is over and you are satisfied.
- Want to use your own video link? No problem. Otherwise, we automatically setup a Zoom video link and provide a free recording + transcript afterwards.
- Our tools include access to your past research participants in one place with the ability to leave notes for your team and provide feedback & reviews.
- Our model is flexible & transparent. You see exactly how much each participant is getting paid for each interview.
- The all-in price including interviewee incentives ranges anywhere from $200 — $900 / hour. The price varies based on how difficult it is to find the candidate, their own hourly rate and the level of service provided by DeepBench.
- DeepBench is happy to provide references upon request.
Lastly, as a special bonus for design research / innovation groups who have never used us before — simply mention this article and we will waive $500 off our fees on your first call. (Limited time offer)
If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to us here.
Thanks again for reading, and we hope that you will spread the good word!
