An informed consent or research consent form is a documented agreement between a researcher and participant. The researcher provides the full information about the research goals, the scope of involvement of the participant, and how the research findings will be used. The participant agrees to the study terms and makes an informed decision to participate in the research by signing the form.

You might be confused about whether you should ask people to sign the consent form if it’s just a short phone call and can hardly be named a research session. If you're going to use users' quotes publicly or share this information with your team, you definitely should notify users about it and receive their consent.

The consent form also has other benefits:

• It is a consistent way to inform all participants about the research details, especially when they are large in number
• It ensures that the researchers prioritize the welfare of participants and their data
• It motivates researchers to take the study seriously^[1]