Introducing Interviews: A simple way to organize and conduct research

We’re excited to introduce our brand new Interviews feature to Lyssna! 

With our Interviews feature, you can now organize and schedule your research in one place. Save time, streamline your workflow, and easily organize your moderated studies so you can spend your time conducting research – not organizing it!

Addressing recruitment and scheduling challenges in research participant management

Before we get into the details, we want to touch on why we prioritized building this feature. 

After running a qualitative research study with customers and non-customers, we discovered several shared pain points when it comes to participant management and scheduling processes.

One key finding was that using multiple tools is unmanageable and time consuming. While existing tools like Calendly are helpful, they lack specific features tailored for user research, such as incorporating screener questions. 

We also found a lot of studies were being manually scheduled. Why? Well, reasons vary, from wanting control and visibility over recruitment to not having enough budget for scheduling tools. Some found it challenging to collaborate across multiple teams or haven’t had the time to explore other solutions. 

We wanted to address these challenges by designing a solution that makes planning moderated research easier. With Interviews, you can screen participants to make sure you’re recruiting the right candidates for your study, schedule across multiple calendars with multiple hosts (and in multiple time zones), and track recruitment progress, helping to minimize no-shows and consolidating the entire process in a single tool.

What can you do with the Interviews feature?

Let’s look at what you can do with Interview Scheduling in more detail.

Set up your moderated study criteria 

Include screener questions to qualify, disqualify, or manually review participants. Choose from different question types, including single and multiple choice, and long and short answers. 

Looking for help writing survey screeners? Check out Michele Ronsen's expert tips and grab a handy checklist for designing your next screener.

Next, connect your Google Calendar to Lyssna, choosing the calendar where you want to book in sessions. You can also add co-hosts from your team – we’ll then use this information to determine your joint availability. After all, we all know research is a team sport!

You can also set the time frame for your study and specify your availability and time zone. There’s an option to add buffers before and after your events too, so you can catch your breath, gather your notes, or grab a cup of tea.

When setting up your study, there are options to modify the session name and description, set the session duration, add a video meeting link, and specify any technical requirements.

Recruit participants for your study

Once you’ve set up your study, you can create recruitment links to share in emails, social media, forums — wherever your participants are. You have two options when it comes to recruiting: 

• Automatic qualification: Eligible participants automatically qualify and will be able to book a session with you at a time that suits them best. You can set the number of spots to fill, for example the first 5 participants will be led automatically to the booking screen after qualifying.

• Handpick participants: Manually select participants based on their screener responses. You can then send invitations via email or from the Applications page (more on this below).

From the recruitment link page, you can also enter details about the incentive you’re offering participants – this will be displayed in their booking confirmation and calendar invitation. 

You can create multiple links for your study, allowing you to recruit from various sources with different selection rules or incentive amounts for different audience segments.

Manage all your participants in one place

From the Applications page, you can view all applicants and their status, along with their answers to the screener questions. The status of participants is clearly displayed – booked, applied, canceled, or complete – making it easy to track their progress. 

If you’re handpicking participants and want to send out bulk invitations, you can do this from the Applications page. Simply select all the relevant applicants and click “Send invitations.” 

Invited participants receive an email with a link to select a booking time. Once they’ve booked a time, they’ll receive confirmation of their booking via email, which they can cancel or reschedule if needed.

We haven’t forgotten about reminders! Participants receive automated reminders 24 hours prior to their session. They’ll be given a booking link which redirects them to a page with all the session info and a link to join the call. 

As for researchers, you'll receive a round-up email of all the sessions scheduled for the day, as well as a helpful reminder 15 minutes before each session. 

Make tracking easy (without the spreadsheets)

From the Bookings page, you can view all of your upcoming sessions in one convenient dashboard. Manage hosts, update video links or locations, and even join upcoming sessions right from the dashboard.

We know how important it is to track participant status and incentives. That’s why we’ve made it easy to keep tabs on who’s upcoming and who’s completed, as well as track no-shows. After a session has passed, you can mark it as "Complete" or as a "No-show," as well as mark off when incentives have been sent. It’s all about staying organized and ensuring a smooth research journey.

Try out Interviews today

Are you excited to try out this new feature? Don’t have an account? Sign up for a free plan.

Say goodbye to scheduling struggles and hello to streamlined research interviews. It’s time to simplify your research process and focus on what really matters – conducting research and gaining valuable insights to create exceptional user experiences.