Parliamentary Digital Service

Participants for Parliament's New Website

1
Incomplete application
1 SME, 0 large
3
Completed applications
3 SME, 0 large
Published Friday 9 February 2018
Deadline for asking questions Friday 16 February 2018 at 11:59pm GMT
Closing date for applications Friday 23 February 2018 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

Summary of the work We require a supplier to partner with for a series of participant recruitment projects that will deliver at least 10 rounds of user research with approx. 5-10 participants per round. Participants will largely be specialist user groups including political journalists, lobbyists, and people who currently interact with Parliament's website.
Location London
Research dates First round of research is likely to be April 2018
Organisation the work is for Parliamentary Digital Service
Budget range £1000-£2500 per round of research.

About the work

Early market engagement

About the research

Description of your participants Screeners to be refined for each round of research, but could include:

Political Lobbyists:
People employed by a lobbying company, who follow the activity of Parliament, and engage with Parliament on a professional basis.

Political Journalists:
Print, TV or Radio journalists who cover the activity of Parliament as part of their professional role.

Local Journalists:
Journalists who cover local issues, and use reports, stats or other information put out by Parliament to inform their work.

Campaigning Citizens:
Citizens who contact their MP about issues that are important to them, in a non-professional capacity

Academics:
Academics who follow the activity of Parliament as part of their professional role, or as part of study for higher education.

Researchers:
People who follow the activity of Parliament, for example the reports written, as part of their professional role.

Tourists :
Visitors to Parliament who have attended as a tourist destination.
UK Citizens who have visited Parliament having booked a tour from their MP

Travel professionals:
People who book tours of Parliament for others

Events professionals:
People who book event venues for professional events, which can include Parliament.

ALL PARTICIPANTS
Must not have done research in 3 months.
Must be willing to be recorded
Assisted digital and accessibility requirements We will be working with users with assisted digital needs, however that is not part of this current recruitment specification.

As a "nice-to-have optional requirement", if the Recruitment Agency has skills and experience working with Assisted Digital users, we may wish to expand their brief to help us with that.
Research plan We have a number of product teams, each running an agile development project in 2 week sprints.

We expect to run at least one round of user research in most sprints. However, there may be times when we skip a sprint or slightly change the dates to accommodate annual leave or sickness.

Because we have multiple product teams, it is likely that we'll be recruiting for multiple rounds of research simultaneously.
Research location Our requirements will include:

LAB-BASED USABILITY TESTING Face-to-face in Westminster based research facility. Participants will be located within reach of London

REMOTE, MODERATED USABILITY TESTING Using screensharing software and video. Participants located in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We may also want to add additional research methods in future rounds, including phone interviews and contextual inquiry.
Access restrictions at location To enter the building, the participant will have to go through airport style security screening.
Number of research rounds An initial 10 rounds, with the potential to extend.
Number of participants per round 5-8
How often research will happen We have a number of product teams, each running an agile development project in 2 week sprints.

We expect to run at least one round of user research in most sprints. However, there may be times when we skip a sprint or slightly change the dates to accommodate annual leave or sickness.

Because we have multiple product teams, it is likely that we'll be recruiting for multiple rounds of research simultaneously.
Evening or weekend research

Additional information

Additional terms and conditions Please note that PDS cannot be associated with the offering or provision of incentives, i.e. no cash, gifts or rewards can be described as offered or provided by us. Our team also cannot handle incentives. Incentives must be provided and fulfilled by the recruitment agency and incorporated in the recruitment costs.

The Authority is accredited by Citizens UK (CUK) as London Living Wage Employers. As a condition to this Contract, the Contractor and Sub-contractors providing services to the Authority shall pay to all Personnel assigned to this Contract, as a minimum, the London Living Wage (specifics available on request).

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

Essential skills and experience
  • Ability to regularly recruit specialist users for face to face usability testing
  • Ability to regularly recruit specialist users for remote usability testing (including briefing and ensuring they are technically capable of screensharing)
  • Screen participants to ensure they meet the criteria of each round of research
  • Demonstrable ability to source niche and hard to access participants
  • Ability to manage and deliver incentives
  • Provision of a single point of contact to work with Parliamentary Digital Service throughout the engagement, who will be directly responsible for the recruitment and briefing of participants
  • Point of contact to reliably respond to communications by email or phone within 3 hours
  • Once the round of research is booked, supplier must be able to complete recruitment within a 2 week window.
  • Ability to confirm session times and participants 3 days before the research is scheduled to start
  • Arrange and manage participants, ensuring their attendance at the research
Nice-to-have skills and experience
  • Ability to recruit "Assisted Digital" participants within our user groups
  • Ability to recruit users for phone interviews
  • Ability to recruit users for contextual interviews (on site workplace)

How suppliers will be evaluated

How many suppliers to evaluate 3
Proposal criteria
  • Approach to performing regular recruitment of new respondents matching the specification.
  • The proposed approach for recruitment of niche participants on a regular basis (broken down as detailed in the participant description above)
  • Demonstrate an ability to adapt recruitment criteria between rounds as required
  • Demonstrate an ability to organise and handle incentives for participants
  • Demonstrate an ability to regularly update our research team with progress on recruitment
  • Timeframes for initial recruitment of niche audiences
  • Timeframes for the period between briefing for a round of research, and participants attending a research session
  • Cost breakdown for recruitment for a typical round of lab based research sourcing a niche audience (6x Political Journalists for 1 hour in-person lab research based in Westminster)
Assessment methods
  • Written proposal
  • Interview
Evaluation weighting

Technical competence

40%

Availability

10%

Price

50%

Questions asked by suppliers

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