UXPA Boston Conference 2020

Characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender, and disability status—whether they are socially constructed, superficial, or highly visible—can have a significant impact on how we experience the world, and how the world experiences us. In my experience as a UX researcher, diversity is the first thing to vanish from the recruit when the going gets tough; I want to show you why that is not okay, and what you can do about it in your own practice. Researchers may already believe that diversity is important in theory, but this presentation will go further by demonstrating why it is imperative for a strong user research study, providing examples of what we miss when we do not insist on diversity, and offering talking points to help make the case to clients, stakeholders, and internal teams.

In this presentation, we will examine the problem space through a sociological lens and talk about what it means to live a different experience based on your demographics and characteristics. Then, I will discuss the results of a survey that asks about how researchers think about and practice diversity recruitment in their screeners; we will look at examples where opportunities were uncovered or completely missed because the researcher did or did not insist on retaining diversity criteria in the recruit. Finally, I will offer suggestions to help researchers make the case for including and retaining diversity criteria in their screeners to ensure that the participants they talk to are representative of the full spectrum of their intended audience.