Our Interviews feature allows you to easily schedule and manage moderated studies with your own audience or users from the Lyssna panel. Whether you want to conduct a user interview or observe participants as they complete a set of tasks, moderated studies are ideal for gathering detailed insights.
You can run sessions with your preferred video conferencing tool all while using your Lyssna account to screen participants, review and manage applications, book sessions, record and transcribe sessions, and even offer and keep track of participant incentives!
Creating your study
Begin by selecting the +Create study button at the top of the page in your Lyssna account, then selecting Interview study from the dropdown list:
Adding your study details
Enter a name for your study and click Create. Your study name is an internal name only and won't be shown to your participants.
You will immediately be taken to the Setup tab where you can customize the details of your study.
Your Session name is different from your Study name and will be visible to your participants. It will be auto-filled with your company name or your first name if provided at signup, but if you'd like to change it, you can edit it from here.
We have also pre-filled a generic session description that your participants will see in their invitations. If you would like to change the wording, you can edit it from here.
Specify the duration of your study by choosing a timeframe from the dropdown menu. Note: If you are placing an order with the Lyssna panel, the duration cannot be changed once you begin recruiting.
If you're using the same meeting link for all of your sessions, paste it in the Location text box. If you'd prefer to use unique links for each participant session, leave this box blank. You can then manage individual links for each session once they're booked.
Finally, you can specify the devices from which participants can join your study, and whether they will need to have access to their device's microphone or camera, or both.
Adding screener questions
You can optionally screen participants into or out of your study by having them answer a set of qualifying questions.
From the menu sidebar, click Screener and then toggle the feature on:
You may use single-choice, multiple-choice, short-text, or long-text answers.
Both single and multiple-choice questions allow you to select which option(s) automatically qualify or disqualify participants from a session.
Multiple-choice questions allow you to specify which options are not relevant, if any.
Short and long text answers do not allow you to automatically qualify or disqualify participants. You must review these answers and manually select participants for a session.
If you have multiple screener questions, participants will have to answer all of them even if their answer to the first question disqualifies them. They will still be ineligible for your test but there is not currently a way to disqualify the participant immediately on a per-question basis.
Managing hosts and availability
If you're on a team account, you can add other team members as co-hosts from the Hosts and availability tab. Co-hosts will automatically receive a notification when a session is booked.
Click Add host in the bottom left corner of the Hosts box and select a teammate from the list. You can invite as many team members as are on your account.
User roles
By default, the creator of the study will be the Main host, and any additional team members will become co-hosts. All communication sent to participants will come from the main host. You can switch the roles around, but there can only be one main host.
Calendar integration
How it works
Connecting your Google or Outlook calendar(s) will automatically block participants from potential booking conflicts with any scheduled events in your calendars. If your team members have also connected their calendars, only your overlapping availability will be shown to participants.
Your team members are not required to connect their calendars to schedule sessions, but this is a good practice if you want to automatically add sessions to their calendars and avoid meeting clashes. They can do so through the Integrations settings in their Lyssna account.
How to set it up
If it's your first time creating an Interview, click Connect calendar to the right of your name. You only need to do this once. You can also do this from your Integrations settings before setting up your study.
A pop-up will appear where you must sign into your Google or Outlook account and allow the security permissions for Lyssna to access your Google or Outlook calendar.
Once linked, click the 0 calendars button and select which calendar(s) you would like the platform to check for availability. Your team members will need to do this from their Integrations settings when connecting their calendars.
In the Events calendar tab, you can use the dropdown to select which calendar you'd like the sessions to be booked into:
Setting your availability
Set the date range for your study.
Set the time zone and then select the days and times you'll be available to host sessions. Days which are toggled off will be completely unavailable for participants to book. You can split each day into shifts by clicking the + sign next to the times.
If you would like to avoid back-to-back sessions, you can add a buffer before and/or after your sessions, which will be taken into account when showing your availability to participants:
If you add a buffer before, a session can't be booked immediately after another event in your calendar, e.g. if you set a 15-minute buffer before your sessions and have an internal meeting until 10:00 am, the earliest a participant can book is 10:15 am.
If you add a buffer after, participants will not be able to book a time slot within that amount of time after another session.
If you add a buffer both before and after, the times will be added together, e.g. setting a 5-minute buffer before and after means that participants will not be able to book sessions within 10 min of each other.
Gain greater control over your availability by adjusting your session start times to suit your schedule. By default, sessions are set to begin at 15-minute intervals on the hour (e.g., 10:00 am, 10:15 am, 10:30 am, or 10:45 am).
Switching to 30-minute intervals restricts participants to booking sessions only on the hour or half-hour mark (e.g., 10:00 am or 10:30 am).
Opting for on-the-hour intervals limits users to booking sessions exclusively at the hour mark (e.g., 10:00 am).
If you need to adjust your availability for specific dates that may not be a part of your normal schedule (e.g. public holidays and/or half days), click +Add a date override and set your availability for that particular day from the pop up.
If you have already opted in to check availability on your Outlook or Google Calendar, there is no need to manually block out dates/times as the booking calendar we display to applicants will automatically exclude any conflicts with your synced calendar/s.
Previewing your availability
You can check out the availability that would be visible to your participants by clicking the Preview availability button at the top of the Hosts and availability page.
Adding your meeting link
From the Meeting link tab, you can either use a custom link or connect your Microsoft Teams or Zoom account to automatically generate links for each booked session.
Custom link
If you're using the same meeting link for all of your sessions, toggle on the first option under Settings and paste your link into the text box.
If you'd prefer to use unique links for each participant session, toggle the second option under Settings. You can then manage individual links for each session once they're booked.
Using the Zoom or Microsoft integration to generate meeting links
You can either set up your integration from the Meeting link tab directly if it's your first time using it, or you can set it up from your Profile settings. If you have already connected your Microsoft account to allow access to your Outlook calender, Microsoft Teams will also already be linked.
Previewing automated emails
At the bottom of the Setup page, you'll see a section titled Automated emails. Here you can preview the Invitation, Confirmation, Reminder, Reschedule, Cancellation, and Thank you emails before they are sent to participants.
Click the Send preview button to see what that particular email looks like to your participants; it will come as a test email to the email address you are logged in with. The test email will display the study details you filled in during setup, but the incentive (if applicable) and the participant information will display default placeholder text. In the actual emails you send to participants, those placeholders will be replaced with the data specific to your study and your participants.
Previewing your study
When you're ready to preview your study from the perspective of a participant, you can select the Preview button on the Setup page located on the left side of the screen:
When previewing a study you will be asked to insert a full name and email at which point you will be guided through the screener if one is set up for your study. The data provided (name, email, screener answers, and time slot booking) during the preview is not saved. There will not be an email sent to the provided email during this process.
Managing your studies from the Interviews dashboard
Your dashboard is separated into three views—All studies, Tests, and Interviews. It automatically defaults to the All Studies view, but you can click on the Interviews tab to filter out any unmoderated tests you may have on your account and manage your moderated studies from there:
From here you can:
Initiate recruitment by clicking the Recruit button on the relevant study
Rename, duplicate, or archive a study by clicking the three dots on the righthand side of the study and selecting the desired option from the menu:
View high-level information about your study, like how many applicants have passed your screener (hover over Applicants) and how many sessions are upcoming vs. already passed (hover over Sessions).
Ready to recruit? If you have your own audience, check out our article on Recruiting your own participants for Interviews; if you want to interview members of the Lyssna panel, check this article out instead!