Just because user research is applied research, doesn’t mean research ethics isn’t important or necessary! This article covers 5 common ethical dilemmas that can crop up in user-research studies and the best practices around them.

Balancing Honest Disclosure with Study Goals

In ethical research with human participants, informed consent is crucial as it underpins the principle of respect for persons: the right for everyone to have autonomy over their own decisions. Informed consent means that participants are told about all aspects of the study so they can make an informed decision on whether to take part. We collect evidence of informed consent through a consent form.

However, in some studies, disclosing in advance the goals of the study or the organization conducting the study could jeopardize the validity of the research, as participants may not act naturally or might inadvertently change their behavior. Concealment and deception are tactics to mitigate this effect. Both present ethical challenges.

Concealment

Concealment refers to the situation where some important information about the study (which would usually be in the consent form) is withheld from research participants during the consent-gathering process.

Concealment is common in health research. To know whether a new drug can effectively treat a disease, clinical researchers recruit people with the disease and randomly assign them to one of two groups: those who try the new drug and those who don’t. After the study is over, the researchers compare the outcomes of the two groups to learn whether the drug is effective and safe. In studies like these, participants are unaware of which group they have been assigned to, but they know they’ll be randomly assigned to one of the two groups. The group that doesn’t receive the new drug receives an identical sugar pill (a placebo). Concealment is used to control for the powerful psychological effects (known as placebo and nocebo effects) that participants can experience when they think they are receiving treatment.

Deception

Deception occurs when research participants are misled about the purpose of the research or about the organization sponsoring the research study during the consent-gathering process.

Deception is often used to avoid revealing the true motive of the study or who conducts the study.  For example, perhaps a company wants to do competitive testing on its own product and of a competitor product. When recruiting participants and conducting the study, researchers may tell participants that they work for an independent company to prevent biasing participants towards the company’s design.  (In this situation, you can replace deception with concealment by hiring an independent UX-research company to do competitive testing for you; for the study to be sound, however, this company will need to conceal who is funding the research to avoid influencing participants’ behavior.)

Although both concealment and deception can be ethically tricky, deception is more problematic, since false information was provided to participants during consent gathering. Studies that utilize deception or concealment require a debrief, where the researcher provides the correct information after the session or study has concluded. During the debrief, researchers give the participant the option to withdraw (i.e., remove their data from the study) after learning the correct information.

UX studies rarely need to use concealment or deception. They should be reserved only for situations where the study could not be performed without one of these tactics and participants won’t be harmed by them. If you use deception or concealment in your study, provide participants with the correct information after the session is over and respect their wish to withdraw from the study.

Sensitive Research Topics Causing Distress to Participants

Sometimes we develop products and services to support people who might experience hard life situations, including:

• A life-altering medical condition
• Loss of a loved one
• Domestic or sexual abuse
• A serious addiction

Speaking to people about these experiences can be upsetting and can cause participants to relive trauma. However, not researching with target users can result in products and services that are poorly designed, don’t meet people’s needs, and, worse, could cause harm.

One principle of research ethics is to do no harm. To avoid harming participants, research sessions should be appropriately designed to ensure that:

1. Participants are aware of the nature of the topic.
2. Researchers broach sensitive topics without causing harm.
3. Researchers are prepared for how to react should participants become upset.

If your study involves a sensitive topic, you should consider:

1. Seeking guidance from a subject-matter expert (such as a counselor or an employee of a related charity) on how to broach the topic
2. Ensuring that you clearly inform participants of what will and won’t be discussed in the recruitment material, in the consent form, and at the beginning of the session
3. Giving participants the option to withdraw or not answer certain questions if they feel uncomfortable
4. Preparing leaflets with contact information for free resources, counselors, or support services in the participant’s local community

Studying Vulnerable Groups Who Cannot Consent to Participation

Some participants are vulnerable because they can be coerced into participating in studies or could be harmed by participating in research. Extra safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that informed consent is possible, and any risks are minimized. Examples of vulnerable participants include:

• People who can’t consent (e.g., children, people with dementia, people with an intellectual disability, people with low literacy)
• People who might experience discrimination or reputational damage if they were to be identified in research

When participants can’t give informed consent, a legal representative or authorized adult should be asked to provide informed consent in addition to the participant’s agreement (assent) to participate.

If you are recruiting vulnerable participants, conduct a simple risk assessment to identify risks and create a plan to mitigate them and seek support from a subject-matter expert.

Participants Revealing Sensitive Personal Information

Sometimes in user-research studies participants accidentally reveal sensitive personal information (like names, bank accounts, or credit-card information) and this information is captured in session recordings. Several years ago, during an in-person research session in the Middle East, a participant revealed he was homosexual, which was illegal in his country. Thankfully, only a colleague and I were in the session. We immediately stopped the recording and deleted it, realizing that the participant could be harmed if this information got into the wrong hands.

As UX researchers, our first duty is of care towards our participants: even though we might feel that the session is extremely valuable for our study goals, when information like this is captured on recordings or in our data-collection process, we must ensure that it is swiftly and securely removed, even though we might feel that it compromises the study goals or our ability to persuade stakeholders.

Compromising Confidentiality Due to Small Participant Pool

Research is said to be confidential when researchers take steps to ensure that other people inside and outside of their organization are not able to identify participants in the reporting of the research.

While in most user-research studies we can remove references to participants’ personal information (such as their names) to achieve confidentiality, sometimes participants will be identified regardless. For example, if you are performing user research with internal employees from a small team and or if, perhaps, stakeholders helped you to recruit participants for a study, even “anonymous” quotes could be attributed to a person due to the context. In these situations, let participants know that they could be identified before the research occurs. Don’t promise confidentiality if you can’t assure it. Participants should be allowed to withdraw from the study at any point. Consider not inviting stakeholders to the research session and doublechecking with the participant before you begin the recording that they are comfortable with the conditions of the research.

Conclusion

User research, like any other research with humans, can present many ethical dilemmas and challenges. We must design our research studies so that we safeguard our participants’ best interests and do no harm.