Request for Approval

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0920-1027)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Post-Launch Usability Testing for the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention Website Redesign – In-Person

PURPOSE: To solicit feedback related to usability, delivery effectiveness, visual appeal, overall satisfaction, and problems with existing interfaces, of the CDC HIV website. Responses will be analyzed to plan and inform efforts to improve or maintain the quality of service to the public.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: In-Person participants will comprise health care providers, public health professionals, academics, and the general public. They may be frequent or infrequent users of the CDC HIV website. The in-person survey process includes a facilitator script for which a facilitator will guide the respondents through the survey. Since the online survey, which is self-guided is estimated to take 30 minutes to complete, the in-person survey burden contains an additional 30 minutes making the in-person survey total burden 1 hour to allow for the facilitator exchange and guidance.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[X] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other:

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Sue Carlson

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ X] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [X] Yes [] No

Numerous empirical studies have shown that honoraria can significantly increase response rates (e.g., Abreu & Winters, 1999; Shettle & Mooney, 1999, C. Grady, Ethical and Practical Consideration for Paying Research Participants, 2005). We also believe that the small token of appreciation will result in higher data validity as participants become more engaged in the data collection process. Participants will receive their token of appreciation after they complete the posttest survey.

We believe that the online survey invitation will result in sufficient numbers of participants for this project. Therefore, a token of appreciation of $40.00 will only be provided to the 30 in-person participants. Because most of the users of the website are professionals, i.e., Academics, Public Health, Health Care, Scientists or Researchers, they are more difficult to recruit due to their major responsibilities. To reach these essential representative populations, offering a token of appreciation is justified to increase the cost-effectiveness of the recruitment and to improve response rates and the validity and significance of the data obtained. Monetary incentives are often used to facilitate survey recruitment and motivate participation among individuals who might otherwise not respond.

OMB guidance also justifies the use of tokens of appreciation “to improve coverage of specialized respondents, rare groups, or minority populations” and defines specialized respondents as a highly selective group (OMB, 2006).

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Academic Public Health Professional General Consumer Scientists/Researcher	30	1	30
Totals	30	1	30

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is: $282,500.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X ] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

In person respondents will selected from the demographic groups listed above. These respondents come from multiple sources such as HIV partner organizations, academic colleagues known to the contractor who may have accessed the CDC HIV website as part of their normal course of business and or activities. (www.cdc.gov/HIV). In-person participants will comprise health care providers, public health professionals, academics, and the general public. They may be frequent or infrequent users of the site.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [ ] No (See Attachment 1)

All instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

3