How to navigate User Interviews

Who is this article for?
🗣️ All researchers (both admins and users)
⭐ Recommended for all User Interviews plans

The User Interviews workspace design (updated in March of 2024!) is the simplest, most organized way to create and manage research projects. Read a quick summary of what’s changed in our product release notes. 

In this article, we’ll provide:

• An overview of features for general navigation, research design, and participant management
• Answers to frequently asked questions about navigating UI

But first, here’s a preview of the User Interviews experience, from project setup to execution. 

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🌎 General navigation

In this section, you’ll learn how to take general actions within User Interviews, including: 

• Create a new project
• View your participant panel
• Access team templates
• Manage team settings
• Manage account settings
• Get support

Create a new project

When you login to your User Interviews workspace, you’ll find a list of all projects you have access to. Toggle between the tabs at the top of the list to sort by project status, or use the “filter” button to sort by project type or permissions. 

To launch a new project, you can either:

• Click the button with the plus sign to create a new project from scratch.
• Click the “templates” button to create a project from one of your team’s existing templates. 

View your participant panel

To the left of your project list, you’ll find a primary navigation which opens up when you hover over it. 

To view your participant panel:

• Click “Participants” in the left navigation bar.
• From there, you can toggle between your Hub panel, which includes your own participants, or your Recruit panel, which includes participants you’ve recruited from the User Interviews panel for past projects.

Access team templates

To access your team’s project templates:

• Click “Templates” at the top right of your project page. 
• From there, you can select from your team’s saved templates and start a new project. 

If you don’t see any project templates listed and you don’t have permissions to add one yourself, ask your account admin to create one. 

Manage team settings

To access your team settings:

• Click your name in the bottom of the left navigation bar. 
• Click “Team settings.”

From there, you can:

• Invite and manage team members
• Review or upgrade your plan
• Manage logos and email themes in the branding tab
• Edit templates for pages, emails, projects, and the application confirmation page
• Manage advanced options like your data consent notice, footer, authenticated domains, and sender profile

Manage account settings

To access your account settings:

• Click your name in the bottom of the left navigation bar. 
• Click “Account settings.”

From there, you’ll be able to:

• Edit general account settings like your personal information and password
• Manage your availability by connecting your calendar and setting your working hours
• Add debit or credit cards for billing
• Set up integrations with other tools, like Zoom, Qualtrics, Sprig, and more

Get support

To get support:

• Click “Support” in the bottom of the left navigation bar.
• You’ll be directed to our Researcher Help Center where you can browse tutorials, product resources, and frequently asked questions.

🎨 Research design 

When you create a new project, you’ll enter all of your project details into the Research Design section of the project builder. All features in Research Design fall into four major areas:

• Recruitment
• Research activity
• Participant number and incentives
• Participant communications

Let’s walk through the key actions in each of these four major areas of Research Design.

Recruitment

In the recruitment section, you’ll be able to:

• Confirm that your participant source is correct. If not, you’ll need to go back to start a new project and select the right source, as this is not currently editable within the project workspace. If you’re recruiting from your own Hub panel, you’ll be able to select participants from Research Hub or upload a CSV in this section. 
• Define participant criteria: Click “edit” in the Participant Criteria box, and a drawer will open up where you can choose key criteria for targeting. 
• Set up your screener survey: Click “add” in the screener survey box. From there, you can create screener questions or reuse screeners from existing projects. 
• Add a document to request participant signatures: Click “add” in the document signature box to upload a doc from your computer. Your NDA, release form, or other document will be signed by participants before they confirm a time slot.
• Choose between manual and automatic applicant review: Finally, you can choose whether you’d like to review applications manually as they come in, or automatically approve participants who match your criteria to allow them to schedule themselves. If you have the Document Signing Add-On, you’ll be able to select double screening options here too.  

Research activity

This area includes everything related to the design of the study type. 

For moderated studies, these tasks include: 

• Define session length in minutes
• Add session collaborators and manage their roles
• Set a static location for all sessions or use an integration to generate links automatically
• Add available time slots to the calendar and select manual or automatic scheduling. If you have automatic scheduling on, you can configure the gap time you want to leave in between sessions.
• Set up scheduling rules, such as whether or not to allow participants to reschedule
• Add research activity requirements, including clear instructions and any devices they need to have ready for the session

For unmoderated studies, these tasks include:

• Define the task length in minutes
• Add a deadline for task completion
• Specify where the task is located, either using an integration or by entering a link manually
• Add preparation instructions and device requirements

Participant number and incentives

In this section, you can:

• Select the number of participants you want to recruit.
• Add the incentive amount. When doing research with your own panel, you also have the option to provide no incentive.
• Choose whether incentives will be distributed by your team or by User Interviews. If you’re distributing incentives manually, you’ll be asked to choose your incentive type from a drop-down. 

Participant communications

Here you’ll find a summary of project communications and the participant experience. 

In this section, you can:

• Add a project name and description for the recruitment listing shown to applicants
• Send yourself test emails for the various notifications associated with your project
• [For Hub only] Edit emails for project flow notifications 
• [For Hub only] Select your sender profile, email theme, and email template set

Note: A reminder email goes out automatically 48 hours after the initial invitation to participants who haven’t applied.

🗄️ Participant management

Once your project is launched, you can switch to the Participant Management tab to handle all things related to communicating and scheduling with participants. The features in this section are divided into the following areas:

• Invited (for Hub only)
• Applicants
• Sessions
• Messages

Let’s walk through the key actions in each. 

Invited (for Hub only)

If you’re inviting participants from your own panel, you’ll see an “Invited” tab in the Participant Management section. This tab is hidden for those who are recruiting from UI’s panel. 

In the Invited tab, you can:

• Invite more participants by selecting them from Research Hub, uploading a CSV, or sharing a project link
• Keep track of your project invitation email metrics
• View or download a list of participants you’ve invited to your project

Applicants

In the “Applicants” tab, you can:

• View, search, and filter all participants who’ve applied to your project
• Approve and invite qualified applicants
• Update participant ratings 
• Bulk message participants 
• Export a CSV of participant data

Sessions

In the “Sessions” tab, you can:

• View confirmed sessions, including the date, time, incentive, and participant name
• Reschedule, complete, or remove sessions
• Mark participants as “did not show” (learn how to replace no-shows here)
• Edit the incentive for a specific participant

Messages

In the “Messages” section of Participant Management, you can:

• Email individual participants
• Bulk email participants, segmented by status and rating

❓ FAQ

Why can’t I change the project type?

Once you’ve selected the type of project (either via a template or manually), you won’t be able to change the type in the Research Design section. If you want to change the project type for your draft, you’ll need to go back to the main page and start a new project. In the future, we plan to change this, so that projects and templates have more flexibility. 

Why can’t I launch a project?

If you’re struggling to launch a project, double-check that you’ve filled out all the required information. If the green circles next to the tabs under Research Design aren’t fully filled in with a check mark, that means you’re missing some information.

If all the green circles are filled in and you’re still struggling to launch a project, contact your PC or CSM directly for help. 

I still have questions. Who do I talk to?

Email us at projects@userinterviews.com or use our in-app live chat to get support. 

⭐️ Have feedback? Opt into UI’s customer feedback panel! As you’re getting to know User Interviews, we’d love to hear your feedback on what’s working, what could be improved, and what you’d like to see on our product roadmap. Fill out this form to join our feedback panel and shape the future of research recruitment.