NAPCS OMB Justification

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting usability testing on the Web instrument for the collection of the North American Products Classification System (NAPCS) within the 2017 Economic Census. This classification system of approximately 8,000 goods and services is new to the Economic Census. For NAPCS collection, respondents will need to identify and select all of the goods and services they provide.

Two previous rounds of usability testing evaluated a preliminary instrument design and a look-up function for goods and services. The first round of usability testing revealed that respondents prefer to see fewer goods and services on the screen. The second round of testing indicated that while respondents find the ability to look-up goods and services desirable, the search database needs to be tailored to how respondents think about their goods and services, rather than reflect the formal NAPCS description structure.

The current research will help further identify an ideal design for collecting this information, as well how the final instrument will function with a better database for looking up goods and services. In particular, we hope to identify an optimal designs that both satisfies the respondents desire to see less on the screen while also enabling the collection of quality NAPCS information.

From July 2015 through October 2015, we plan to conduct up to five rounds of usability testing with respondents to the 2012 Economic Census from large and small businesses. Each round of testing will evaluate different designs for collecting product information. Currently, there are five different proposed designs for how to present product information in a Web instrument. We hope to evaluate how these different ways of presenting product information affect the way that respondents report their goods and services. The most effective designs may become part of a proposed pilot study to further evaluate NAPCS data collection.

The rounds of usability testing will provide preliminary evaluations on the usability of these designs. The usability testing also will evaluate how well a look-up function for goods and services will work within these designs. Testing will involve a combination of low-fidelity prototypes for instrument designs, and high-fidelity prototypes for the look-up function.

Researchers from the Data Collection and Methodology Research Branch will conduct these interviews at respondents’ workplaces as funding for travel permits. Staff from other areas in the Economic Directorate will help identify locations for testing, assemble recruiting lists, and may participate as observers in the interviews as they are able. We will recruit companies from various industries in locations yet to be determined that responded to the 2012 Economic Census with the goal of testing the different designs across the different industries that are part of the economic census. We want to meet with participants who filled out the 2012 Economic Census and will be most likely to fill out the 2017 Economic Census. After we recruit them, we will give participants a follow-up reminder (phone, email, or fax) of their appointments.

All interviews may be audio-recorded, with the participants' permission, to facilitate accurate summarization of the results. We also will inform participants that their response is voluntary, the information they provide is confidential, and that only employees involved in the research project will see that information. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

The length of the interviews is expected to average 1 hour. We expect to make up to five recruiting calls for every interview scheduled, and each recruiting call will last an average of five minutes. Thus, the total estimated burden for this set of interviews is approximately 106.25 hours ((75 companies X 1 hour) + (375 companies X 5 minutes)).

Enclosed are conceptual mock-ups of the different presentation methods for goods and services, a sample form that shows how goods and services were previously laid out (Item 22), a draft of the interview protocol for the usability testing, and a questionnaire to evaluate the look-up function.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:

Jennifer Beck

Data Collection and Methodology Research Branch

Economic and Statistical Methods Division

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1736

Jennifer.L.Beck@census.gov

Enclosures

cc:
Willaim Bostic          (ADEP) with enclosures

Ian Thomas (EWD) “ “

Jack Moody (EWD) “ “

Anne Rusell (EWD) “ “

Julius Smith (EWD) “ “

Kevin Deardorff (EWD) “ “

Eddie Salyers (EMD) “ “

James Jamski (EMD) “ “

John Studds (ASD) “ “

William Davie (ESMD) “ “

Carol Caldwell (ESMD) “           ”

Carma Hogue (ESMD) “ “
Diane Willimack            (ESMD) “ ”
Amy A. Riemer  (ESMD) “           ”

Paul Beatty (ADRM) “ “

Danielle Norman         (PCO) “           ”