Sprinting towards better consent processes and more inclusive research

Theme: Accessibility, Equity, Inclusion | Research

Consent forms are an important part of any research process. They can be tricky to get right and, at worst, can become a barrier to research participation - especially when we work with people who experience demand avoidance or high levels of anxiety.

This session will explain how we used a multi-organisational design sprint - or co-design sprint - with professionals and people with lived experience to help reframe consent processes.

During this session we'll argue that demand avoidance and high levels of anxiety are prevalent in today's society and without a good understanding of what these things are and how they manifest, we can't do the inclusive research needed to design inclusive public services.

Participant takeaways:

• What particular problems do consent processes cause for people with demand avoidance or high levels of anxiety?

• Who are consent processes designed for - the researcher, their organisation, or the participant? Why is this important?

• Is there anything in the currently widely adopted framework for obtaining voluntary informed consent that could be shifted, tweaked, removed, or added to?

• How can consent processes be altered so that the anxiety they can provoke is lessened, and what are our new principles for gentler consent processes?

• What are the benefits of tackling big problems with many minds working together over a defined period of time in a design sprint?