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Inclusive cohort for research

Engaging with customers

Engaging with customers and understanding their needs provides the biggest long-term gain for teams creating or procuring new products and services.

When we engage with customers, we want to be inclusive. Building or designing for the 'average' customer is a mistake - there is no such thing. Customer diversity is the norm and not the exception.

Every customer possesses a unique set of abilities. These abilities include auditory, cognitive, learning, neurological, physical, speech and visual capacities and limitations. The richness of the diversity offers a wealth of insights.

Be clear about what customers share in common

Regardless of differences in background and ability, all customers share common functional needs and requirements. Researching and testing with a customer cohort that is representative of the shared functional needs and requirements is the inclusive and strategic approach we should all use. Customers share a need for:

  1. Perceive-ability: Customers can use their sight, hearing, or touch to perceive all content and controls.
  2. Simplicity: All content and controls are easy to understand and use. They provide familiar, consistent interactions that make complex tasks simple and straightforward to perform.
  3. Personalisation: Providing customers with the options to choose how they best need to interact with your product. This requires the product to work seamlessly with things such as dynamic text, dark mode, screen orientation, screen readers and text to speech.
  4. Privacy: Customers expect that privacy and security are an integral part of a product or service. Any accessibility features of the product or service should maintain the privacy of any user at the same level as other users.

Defining a Minimum Viable Cohort (MVC)

Based upon customer functional needs, differences in demographics, abilities and exclusion points a customer cohort of around 6-8 participants is the Minimum Viable Cohort (MVC) for qualitative research. An inclusive cohort includes:

Customers who are blind/significant low vision

Cohort members should include customers who use a screen reader such as VoiceOver, Narrator, NVDA, JAWS, or Talkback.

Customers who have limited vision

Cohort members should include customers who either use inbuilt screen magnification software or third-party apps such ZoomText. Potential cohort members include customers with age-related macular degeneration, age-related farsightedness, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and myopia. Additional consideration should be given to customers with other vision conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa (“tunnel vision”) or people who cannot distinguish between certain colours (often referred to as “colour blindness”). Can include customers over 65.

Customers who have no or limited hearing

Potential cohort members include customers with auditory disabilities range from mild or moderate hearing loss in one or both ears ("hard of hearing") to substantial and un-correctable hearing loss in both ears ("deafness"). Some customers with auditory disabilities can hear sounds but sometimes not sufficiently to understand all speech, especially when there is background noise. Some deaf, Deaf customers will require access to signing interpreters.

Customers who have limited fine motor dexterity

Potential cohort members include customers with muscular dystrophy, repetitive strain injury (RSI), rheumatism, tremors or spasms, quadriplegia. Can include customers over 65.Title Content...

Customers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Core cohort members are customers whose main language is not English.

Customers with low digital inclusion index rating/score

Potential cohort members have a low Australian Digital Inclusion Index score based across three dimensions of Access, Affordability and Digital Ability.

When sourcing a cohort, language matters

The old "Do you have a disability?" is a poorly worded question

It is unlikely to deliver the cohort you are looking for. Many people who have a disability will not identify as having a disability. For some, they are concerned about being labelled, excluded, and discriminated against. For others, they may not identify as having a disability for personal reasons based upon limited concepts of disability or in some cultures, even shame. Whatever the reason, their hesitancy is rooted in their lived experience.

Base your questions using the approach recommended by the United Nations Washington Group on Disability Statistics. Focus on functional ability rather a label. You will reach a wider customer audience using this approach. Some example questions may be:

  1. I have an ongoing condition (longer than 6 months) that restricts my ability to undertake everyday task/activities.
  2. I have a temporary illness or injury (3-6 months) that limits my ability to undertake everyday task/activities)

Ability includes seeing, hearing, manipulating or controlling items, moving around, communicating, concentrating, understanding and/or interacting with others.