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User Research guide

User research isn't just something you do during the discovery phase. You'll do it throughout the Digital Delivery lifecycle, checking in with your users to answer questions you have about how to improve your service.

Using the User Research guide

Expectations

Teams working on the Veteran-facing Services Platform are required to have “User Research” as a skillset (see Team Roles).

Teams working on the Veteran-facing Services Platform are responsible for conducting their own user research studies, including recruiting. User research/testing studies must adhere to the guidelines laid out in this User Research guide.

If you have any questions, ask your DSVA contact.

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The Paperwork Reduction Act

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) limits the burden placed on people when interacting with the federal government. To avoid violating the PRA, follow the guidelines below.

User research

  1. Research activities involving “direct observation” are exempt from PRA.

    • Whether remote or in-person, if you are looking at users (or their actions), the activity is exempt from PRA. This includes remotely observing a user interacting with a website or an application.

  2. Research activities that ask people questions outside of the observed experience are subject to PRA.

    • This includes recruiting screeners, surveys (pre- or post-activity), and questions at the beginning or the end of an automated activity like card-sorting.

  3. If you aren’t sure if a research activity is subject to PRA, ask your DSVA contact.

Form design

If your team is working on an existing VA form, your researchers and designers will probably have some ideas about how to improve it. Great! But be sure your team understands the limitations of modifying existing VA forms.

  1. If you plan to make look, feel, or language changes to a form, those are considered “de minimis,” so you don’t need PRA approval to make the changes.

  2. If you’re adding fields to an existing form (or creating a new form), you do need PRA approval and will need to go through the (often lengthy) approval process.

  3. If you aren’t sure if your design changes qualify as “de minimis,” ask your DSVA contact.

PRA references

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Participant privacy

All information about research participants, including what they say and do during a research session, is private information that your team must protect.

  • Do not share information about research participants with anyone outside of your team.

  • Protect all PII — names, email addresses, addresses, phone numbers, and any other identifying information.

  • Do not post files containing PII on Github. Keep these locally on your computer.

  • Use encrypted email if you must send files containing PII to someone on your team.

  • Anonymize all participants in session notes and research readouts. E.g., “Participant 1”, “Participant 2”, and so on.

  • Anonymize all PII in session notes. E.g., replace “123 Main Street” with “Home address” or “Lynn, my sister” with “Sister.”

  • After a session is over, delete all PII from all video or audio files.

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Participant recruiting

All teams are required to follow the DSVA screening process for any research study related to the Veteran-facing Services Platform.

After you’ve screened participants, follow your normal recruiting process.

If your team doesn’t have an existing recruiting process, see tips for recruiting.

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All research participants must sign a consent form before taking part in any research sessions.

  • Be sure to update the generic email address with your own!

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Participant thank-yous

The DSVA team thanks participants for the time they spend in our research studies. We thank participants for one-hour research sessions with $50 Amazon digital giftcards or payment to Paypal account or via paper check. We encourage your team to do the same.

  • Note: don’t refer to participant thank-yous as “payments” or as “paying participants.”

  • Contact your COR to get approval for participant thank-yous.

    • The cost can be billed to your contract.
    • Other teams have successfully worked with their CORs by requesting a “not to exceed” amount for all participant thank-yous during their project.
    • The DSVA team has approval from the VA legal team to provide participant thank-yous. If your COR would like to see that approval, ask your DSVA contact.

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User research activities

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Getting help

DSVA research resources are available to provide guidance and support throughout development and deployment.

  • For process-related questions, ask in the #support-external Slack channel.
  • For research-related questions, ask in your team’s “Product” Slack channel.