September 7, 2017.

Let’s face it, recruiting testers is hard. You need to figure out how many you need, where and how to find them. It’s tedious, time-consuming and always - expensive.

If you want a good user tester, you’re gonna have to pay for their time. And that’s ok.

If you ever tried to recruit user testers you probably know it takes longer than you think. Often it is not as simple as putting out an ad saying you need user testers.

People are unpredictable, and even if you manage to find the right testers for your project they may simply not show up on schedule. And don't get me started on the importance of avoiding bias while conducting research.

This article is not about explaining all aspects of user testing, but rather to explain the situation on the field and where we, as a small design studio currently stand.

Our teams' first steps into recruiting were done with guerrilla recruiting. We were digging through online meeting points of our specified target users: Facebook groups, forums, blogs and direct messaging. The more specific our target users were, the harder we reached them.

However, when we got the ball rolling and found the first user testers the word spread fast and our testers started recommending their friends and colleagues. Now, we have a constantly growing pool of user testers.

The whole process took months and it is often not something most small teams can afford  — on your project, you can leave the recruiting to us and use that time to take care of other aspects of your project.

So, to recap, guerrilla tactics can and do work but they are very time-consuming. We recommend tapping into our network of user testers instead :)

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