As a participant, you'll interact with two parties: our support team and the research team running the study you're in. Knowing who does what helps you get help faster.
Good rule of thumb: Questions about a study you're confirmed for go to the researcher through the messages tool. For anything else, sign in and chat with Edison, our virtual assistant. Edison can answer most questions and will help you reach our Support team when needed.
What does the User Interviews Support team do?
We provide the platform where researchers find participants. Our support team is your point of contact for account and general participation questions, as well as bug reports.
Our support team can:
- Help troubleshoot account issues. If you're having trouble verifying your account, logging in, or need help editing your profile, we're here to help.
- Answer general questions about how User Interviews works.
- Handle bug reports and screener errors. We'll forward bug reports to our tech team and relay screener errors to the research team that owns the study.
- Help with incentives paid as "choice of dozens of digital gift cards." Note that we can't assist with incentives until 10 business days have passed since the study deadline, session date, or task expiration date.
- Step in if you experience researcher misbehavior. If it's been more than 10 business days and your session isn't showing under the My Studies tab, a researcher has invited you to apply to a study off-platform, or you feel you've been mistreated in any way, sign in and chat with Edison to reach our Support team.
- Welcome your feedback. We're a user research platform, so we genuinely value your input. Chat with Edison to share ideas, feature requests, or comments anytime.
What do research teams do?
Researchers use User Interviews to find participants for their studies. They own their study entirely and are your point of contact for anything related to a specific session. You can reach them through the messages tool in your participant dashboard or by selecting Message the researcher in your confirmation email.
Research teams:
- Create their own studies. Researchers write their own title, description, and screener. While our team can suggest fixes or improvements, we can't make changes without the researcher's consent.
- Choose their own participants. Selection decisions are entirely up to the researcher. We have no control over who gets selected.
- Set the schedule. Session times and deadlines are set by the researcher. Our team can't offer new times or extend deadlines.
- Manage cancellations and reschedules. If you need to cancel or reschedule, contact the researcher through the messages tool first. Contact Support only if the researcher hasn't responded.
- Conduct the sessions. All session details - links, instructions, task confirmation - are held by the researcher. If you haven't received your session link or need help accessing your session, message the researcher directly.
- Issue payment for incentives other than "choice of dozens of digital gift cards." If a study is paying anything other than "choice of dozens of digital gift cards," the researcher is handling payment. Our team doesn't have tracking or details on that payment. Still not paid after 10 business days? Chat with Edison to reach our Support team. We can't step in before then.