Ethical user research

What is ethical research and why its important

'Ethical conduct' is more than doing the right thing. It is acting in the right spirit, out of respect and concern for others. Ethical conduct in human research is an ethos that should permeate the way we approach research. Conducting ethical human research aligns to global primary research standards, particularly with underrepresented groups.

Primary research (researching directly with people) can cause a risk of harm ranging from loss of privacy or benefits to participants, damage to disadvantaged groups, or physical or mental harm to participants and researchers.

Everyone involved in user research must behave in a way that is:

• Fair
• Transparent
• Does no harm
• Accountable
• Respectful

Setting up ethical research

Research that poses a higher risk to people includes where you're engaging vulnerable people, topics are sensitive or you're intending to publish identifiable personal or health information.

In these cases, we recommend you include other experts to give you advice about how to conduct your research safely and ethically.

You can speak to experts in your organisation to help you identify ethical and privacy risks in your research. They can also advise whether your research should go through an ethics committee for approval. Teams in your organisation include:

• privacy team or your local privacy officer
• legal team in your organisation
• an expert in the domain of your study
• your organisation evaluation unit
• central research function or ethics panel (if your organisation has one).

During the stage of setting up your research scope and proposal, it's crucial to identify:

• what ethical issues need to be considered and addressed?
• whether external ethics review is required? Does your agency have a policy or guidelines relating to external ethics review?
• are there vulnerable or culturally distinct groups involved?
• is there linked data involved, with different consent and privacy issues?

Support services for participants

The types of questions asked by researchers when conducting user research may bring up some sensitive topics with research participants. We should provide participants with information on services that they can reach out if they are feeling vulnerable or need to talk with someone.

You can create a participant information sheet that includes:

• contact information for the researchers.
• a range of options for support services. As government, we must not preference one service over another.
• contact details for complaints about the research.

Support services

Sometimes these sorts of sessions bring up things that people might want to talk about with a professional. If this turns out to be the case for you, the following are some organisations you could contact.