Recruiting and screening are the steps of inviting people to participate in your design research and getting their informed consent. Take steps to recruit participants with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences.
Screening for health literacy
Most screening tools designed to measure health literacy skills (like the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults, the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, and the Newest Vital Sign) have to be used in person and are meant for patients in a clinical setting.36 You can find these and other health literacy assessment tools in the Health Literacy Tool Shed.
These options may not be practical or very useful for web and health content developers, especially if you’re using a private company’s recruitment database. Instead, you can use a proxy for health literacy based on commonly collected demographic data.36 For example, the following criteria could serve as a proxy for identifying web users with limited health literacy skills:
- High school education or below
- Low income — defined as 200% of the federal poverty level or below (or $62,400 for a family of 4 in 2024)
- Have not searched for health information online in the past year
You can also try a simple 1-question health literacy measure. As part of screening, ask your participants: “How confident are you filling out medical forms by yourself?”
Recruiting a broad participant pool
In addition to recruiting for participants who may have limited health literacy skills, recruit participants with a wide range of abilities — including participants who need assistive technology, such as screen readers, to navigate websites. If your digital product is available in multiple languages, recruit non-native English speakers.
Keep in mind that some kind of personal connection can make a big difference during recruitment. For example, people will be more likely to consider participating in your study when you can say that a mutual acquaintance suggested the connection.37
Use trusted community recruiters to help you recruit from community contexts — like adult learning centers, senior centers, and Federally-Qualified Health Centers. This can also help you recruit participants from your priority populations.
