Research with dementia caregivers poses persistent methodological and ethical challenges, particularly when interview-based studies are designed without sufficient grounding in lived caregiving realities. Questions framed through clinical or deficit-oriented assumptions risk alienating participants, undermining rapport, and producing shallow or ethically fraught data. While human-computer interaction (HCI) research increasingly adopts participatory approaches in technology design, participation rarely extends to the design of research methods themselves. This paper examines the role of lived-experience advisors as methodological partners in caregiver interview research. We report on a qualitative study in which two advisors with extensive dementia caregiving experience were engaged prior to fieldwork as methodological partners, extending participatory principles beyond technology design into the design of research methods themselves. Drawing on transcripts of advisor consultations and subsequent interviews with ten caregivers and one person living with dementia, we identify two key methodological contributions of advisor involvement. First, advisors enabled anticipatory validity by surfacing caregiving challenges, ethical sensitivities, and interpretive concerns that later appeared in caregiver interviews, allowing the researcher to enter the field with grounded awareness under constrained recruitment and fieldwork conditions. Second, advisors provided cultural, emotional, and systemic context that improved interpretive sensitivity and helped avoid misreadings. We argue that lived experience functions as methodological infrastructure, extending participatory principles into the design and conduct of research itself, and constituting a generalizable methodological pattern for HCI research with caregivers and other vulnerable or marginalized populations.

翻译：痴呆症照护者的研究持续面临方法论与伦理挑战，尤其是在访谈研究设计未能充分扎根于实际照护经验时。基于临床或缺陷导向假设构建的问题可能疏远参与者、损害信任关系，并产生肤浅或存在伦理隐患的数据。尽管人机交互研究在技术设计中日益采用参与式方法，但参与性很少延伸至研究方法本身的设计。本文探讨了生活经验顾问作为方法论合作伙伴在照护者访谈研究中的作用。我们报告了一项质性研究，其中两位具有丰富痴呆症照护经验的顾问在实地调研前作为方法论合作伙伴参与，将参与式原则从技术设计延伸至研究方法设计本身。通过分析顾问咨询记录及后续对十名照护者和一名痴呆症患者的访谈资料，我们识别出顾问参与的两项关键方法论贡献：其一，顾问通过揭示照护挑战、伦理敏感点和解释性问题实现了预期效度，这些问题后来均出现在照护者访谈中，使研究者在招募受限的实地调研条件下能基于实际认知开展研究；其二，顾问提供的文化、情感与系统性背景提升了解释敏感性，有助于避免误读。我们认为生活经验构成了方法论基础设施，将参与式原则延伸至研究设计与实施过程，为面向照护者及其他弱势或边缘群体的HCI研究提供了可推广的方法论范式。