How To Create A Research Project For Hotjar's testers

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We have divided the process into four smaller steps. We cover these steps in-depth in the guide below (scroll down for written format):

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Basic details

The research name will be the public title of your research, you should aim for something brief yet informative. A few examples for research names:

• New hotel booking prototype testing

• Researching how people purchase gifts online

• How do you manage your finances?

• Provide feedback for our startup

• Interviewing users for our idea

• User test our website

You have the option to add a separate, internal name for easier identification for your team. Anything can go in here that helps you be more organized, ticket numbers from issue/project trackers, URLs, dates, the person conducting the sessions, etc.

The description is again shared with the users, the goal is to explain who are you, what are you trying to accomplish with the research and what might be required from them. Examples may be:

• We're researching what motivates people to buy theatre tickets. What information is important to them, and what will eventually cause them to make their decision. We would like to know what information was important in the decision making, and will ask you to try to complete a couple of tasks in our wireframed interface.

• We’re testing our new UX research platform and we want to talk to UX professionals who have experience interviewing users. We want to learn what challenges you face when it comes to user research. We'll also ask you to perform specific tasks on our app that’ll help us to improve our interface.

• We'd like to hear your feedback about our new startup and curious to hear what you think.

• We'd like to test our website and would love to hear your feedback.

The default 30-minute session length is suited for testing simple, defined features or shorter interviews. For longer user interviews or user testing more complex interfaces a one-hour session might be a better bet. The timer starts when both parties join the call, you'll have an extra 10 minutes to finish everything up after the 30/60 minute timer ends.

Scheduling

At the next step, you'll be providing the dates and time frames that you're available for conducting the test sessions. Though you have a good chance of having testers scheduled in only a few hours, we recommend providing times for at least a few days ahead. While the process itself is straightforward, we have a few important points for you to keep in mind:

• Make sure you allow yourself enough time to carry out all the sessions you've planned with breaks in between.

• There's a fixed 15 mins break between each session, so you cannot schedule your sessions right after each other (you can change these in your profile settings).

• You have the option to add multiple time intervals for each day. Useful for a lunch break for example.

• All the times you see here are in your current timezone (based on your profile settings).

• We recommend connecting your calendar. This will prevent over-bookings (with your calendar events) and place your scheduled sessions neatly into your calendar.

• Consider your participant's time zone: if they are in the US and you're in Europe, make sure you provide time that fits them well.

Demographics

This is where it starts to get a little bit more exciting. With the demographic fields, you can filter our user panel to match your testers with your specific requirements. To have an idea about where most of our users are from, head over to our country-specific pages. ‍

You can provide as many jobs in the job title field as you like. This is a broad match, so if you want to find people in digital marketing your keywords should look something like this: digital strategist, SEM manager, SEO specialist, web marketing manager, internet marketing specialist, director of digital marketing. Similarly for software engineers: Development Engineer, Software Engineer, SE, Software Design Engineer, SDE

In some cases using the industry option is also a good idea. For example for finding people working in Healthcare, Real estate, etc.

Unticking the 'Invite users automatically' checkbox means that no invites will be sent out after you've started the research. This is useful if you already have people you want to test with and you don't want anybody from our user pool to schedule a slot.

At the bottom of the screen, you'll see an estimate on how many testers will match your criteria to help you avoid narrowing down the pool too much.

Screener

With custom screener questions, you have a powerful tool to further target your desired audience. This will yield quality feedback that will help you make the right decisions in developing your software, product, or other digital experiences.

After typing in your question you can choose a text field for the answer (open question) or provide multiple answers from which your participants will be able to select just one (think radio buttons) or multiple answers (checkboxes). With multiple answers, the participant will need to tick each answer you've marked as 'Required', while an 'Incorrect' answer disqualifies the respondent. Use 'optional' if there are multiple acceptable responses but not all are required.

You'll see the responses of all invited users who've successfully submitted their answers. The participants with no disqualifying answers on any questions are asked to book a session directly but you can allow any participant to schedule a session manually regardless of their answers.

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Screeners are a great way to ask the user if they're willing to register on your site or download your app. This is the place to ask them to sign an NDA too. We have collected a few tips on screeners to help you find the right candidates for your study.

We have a few more examples for you to showcase common questions and types of answers.

Targeting users buying online tickets

Which of the following statements apply to you?

• I have never purchased concert tickets online (disqualify)

• I bought a concert ticket online over a year ago. (disqualify)

• I bought a concert ticket online within the last year. (accept)

• I’ve not purchased concert tickets online but am planning to in the next months. (accept)

• I prefer not to say. (disqualify)

Frequency of use questions

it’s important to define frequency in exact terms, instead of “occasionally”, or "regularly”.

How often do you play mobile games?

• Daily (accept)

• Weekly (accept)

• Few times in a month (disqualify)

• Rarely (disqualify)

• Never (disqualify)

Familiarity questions

Aim to provide more options for the testers to choose from, avoid yes/no questions (people might say yes expecting that as the 'correct answer').

How would you classify your level of familiarity with blockchains:

• Not familiar at all - have never heard of blockchains

• Slightly familiar - have heard of it but don’t know what it does

• Somewhat familiar - I have a broad understanding of what they are and what they do

• Extremely familiar - I have extensive knowledge on the topic, worked with it

Requiring an NDA - Non-disclosure agreement

Working on a confidential project or an unfinished product, you should include an NDA to ensure the participant doesn’t reveal any critical information before the release. If you need your users to sign an NDA, it’s generally a good idea to add this as a screener question:

Are you willing and able to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before the session?

• I agree to sign an NDA (accept)

• I do not agree to sign an NDA (disqualify)

• I'm not sure (disqualify)

Summary

As a final step, you can have a quick glance at all the details you've filled in previously. We recommend visiting the preview page of the research to have an idea of what your testers will see. Your research is not live yet, no invites are going out. You can go back to previous steps if necessary before clicking 'Start research'. Upon clicking the button, the invites are starting to go out to the potential participants in smaller numbers first, increasing in size in each wave until all the spots are filled.

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