Who is this article for?
🗣️ All researchers
⭐️ On any User Interviews plan
Custom participant links and redirects are widely used in research, especially for unmoderated tasks or surveys. They help researchers track individual participant progress across panel and testing tools, simplifying participant management and data collection.
Below, we'll walk you through how this system works, why it's valuable, and how to set it up with User Interviews.
What are redirects, and why use them?
A redirect system is commonly used to enable researchers to track participant progress when using both a panel provider (like User Interviews) and an unmoderated testing tool (like SurveyMonkey or Sprig).
Here’s an example of what the participant journey might look like when using the redirect system:
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The journey looks like this:
- A custom link is generated for a participant, and then sent to them. That custom link includes some variables (like a Participant ID) to help identify that participant (as well as to share useful data or to personalize the experience more).
- The participant clicks the link and is sent to the testing tool where they can complete whatever task (survey, usability test, etc) you need them to complete.
- When the participant completes the task, they are redirected back to the custom URL created by User Interviews, and the custom variables are sent along with it.
- Then, User Interviews can use the custom URL to identify the participant and automatically update details about their progress within UI.
Redirects are a great solution when existing integrations with tools aren't available. Since many tools already support a custom link and redirect approach, leveraging this feature enables researchers to:
- Track participant progress in tools without requiring custom development.
- Simplify logistics for unmoderated research.
- Expand functionality to a broader range of tools.
By using User Interviews's custom link and redirect system, researchers gain flexibility and control without needing to wait for new integrations.
How to set up redirects in User Interviews
1. Go to the Task Platform section of your unmoderated project and select “Tracked custom link.”
When you’re building an unmoderated project in User Interviews, you’ll be asked to add a task link under the Research Design > Research Activity section. This will open up a task drawer where you can connect research tools. If redirects are enabled for your team, you’ll see a “Tracked Custom Link” option in the task drawer.
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2. Copy the task link from your testing tool into the URL field in User Interviews.
Once you click into the “tracked custom link” option, you can paste your task link (from the testing tool) into a URL box.
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By default we append ?iid=TRACKINGID to the URL when you paste in a URL. If you choose to manually type the URL you will need to include TRACKINGID as part of the url in order for unique links to be generated.
TRACKINGID will be replaced with a unique participant identifier like pp_123456 when it’s sent to a participant.
⚠️ Important: You may need to customize the task URL for the specific testing tool you use.
Some testing tools require a URL parameter or custom URL that doesn’t include our standard format. In these cases, you can customize the custom link to fit your needs. TRACKINGID will be replaced with a unique participant identifier no matter where you put in the URL.
This gives you the flexibility to adapt to different parameters that a tool might require (for example, participant_id instead of iid: yourtaskurl.com/123456?participant_id=TRACKINGID). Or, it allows you to include the TRACKINGID as part of the url slug (as a few tools require, for example: yourtaskurl.com/123456/TRACKINGID).
3. Head back to the unmoderated tool to set up the redirect flow.
⚠️ Important: For your first project with a custom redirect flow, we suggest working with your CSM to run a pilot and make sure that the tracking is working as intended.
Set-up for redirects varies for different tools, so check the support docs for your chosen unmoderated tool to confirm the setup process. For general guidelines, you may need to:
- Verify Redirect Parameters: Ensure the redirect URL includes the participant ID (e.g., ?iid=TRACKINGID).
- Customize Parameters: If the testing tool requires a different parameter name (e.g., participant_id instead of iid), update the task (see section above) and redirect URLs accordingly. Note: If a tool requires a different parameter, you may need to edit the task link itself along with the redirect URL.
For tool-specific redirect help, see the following:
- Maze: Setting Up URL Redirects at the End of a Test
- Lyssna: Post-Test Redirects
- Optimal Workshop: Redirect URL Setup
- Alchemer: Set Up Your Own Panel Integration
- Qualtrics: Custom Link Tracking Instructions
4. Test your redirect setup to make sure it’s working properly.
Before launching a full project, run a 1-participant pilot to verify the tracking setup.
Once your project is launched, participants should be sent to the task with a unique identifier like https://testingtool.com/555555555?iid={{ID}} where {{ID}} is a unique identifier for each participant (note: this means each participant has a custom URL).
Once the participant completes the task they will be redirected back to User Interviews, and the participant’s status in User Interviews will be updated to submitted.
Note: Currently, Duration and Link won’t be available for projects that use this approach.
Q&A
What is the participant's experience when using redirects?
The only thing different about the participant experience is that when they complete the task, they should be redirected back to User interviews where we will let them know the task completion has been received.
Here’s what that will look like for Hub projects:
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And here’s what that’ll look like for Recruit projects:
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