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Begin looking for research participants immediately. Recruiting participants is the greatest bottleneck of user research. Start as soon as you can.

Experience sampling generates huge amounts of data that affect your choice for the number of participants you can include in the study. The number of participants should be a trade-off between having enough participants who contribute enough answers to the question you ask over and over again and having a number that is too much to handle. For example, 5 participants is a very small number that will not get you enough data and verity. If these participants give you 5 answers each day for 5 days, you’ll have 125 answers. That’s not enough. On the other hand, 1,000 participants are probably too many for you to handle. Imagine if each one of them contributes 5 answers each day for 5 days. That’s 25,000 answers that need to be read, classified, and analyzed. Can you handle that?

Depending on how many answers you want, make sure that the number of participants is relatively low and digestible. Almost any number between 25 and 200 participants is something that probably makes sense.

To find the right participants for your experience sampling study that both qualify to participate in your research and are willing and available to do so, craft a screening questionnaire that will screen people into or out of your study:

1 List your assumptions about participant criteria (e.g., business traveler).

2 Transform participant criteria into measurable benchmarks (e.g., travels for business at least three times a year).

3 Transform the benchmark into a screening question or questions (e.g., How often do you go on an airplane?). If a person chooses the “right” answer, she’s in. If not, she’s out.

4 Craft a screening questionnaire (also called a screener) you can send people. (Here is a sample screener—bit.ly/validating-chapter-1-screener.)

5 Pilot-test the screener with a couple of people and make improvements.

6 Utilize social media to find research participants quickly and effectively. Chapter 9 guides you through social media usage for finding research participants, as well as detailed steps and examples for creating greater screeners.