Live Conversation: How to Join

Live Conversation is available on the following subscriptions:

Click on the following header titles to skip to that section of the article:

• Joining a Session
• Joining with Note Taking
• Joining by Telephone
• Inviting Colleagues
• Hidden Observers

Joining a Session

Moderators and colleagues will receive an email confirmation of the scheduled interview and a reminder email leading up to the interview. On the day of the Live Conversation, moderators will see a button on the UserTesting dashboard 15 minutes before the scheduled interview time.

Moderators and contributors can join up to 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

Please note:

• On seat-based plans: Only the user that created the Live Conversation can start the session.
• On Flex plans: Anyone logged into the account (eg. creator, viewer) can start the Live Conversation session. Currently, the moderator (the person who created the test) must join the call for the hidden observer livestream to start. If the creator of the test cannot join the session, moderatorship cannot be transferred.
• Screen sharing on Safari is not currently supported on Zoom.

Please visit our article on troubleshooting with Zoom if you encounter any obstacles.

Joining with Note Taking

Live Conversation sessions are conducted over Zoom. You can download Zoom to your desktop or use the web/browser version. If you're a moderator and are using a Chrome or Edge browser, you will have two options: Join or Join with note taking. (Note that if you're a colleague, you will only have the option to Join.)

Moderators and colleagues can take notes, and notes are visible to any team member attending the session (but are not visible to the contributor). 

Note:

• Please be aware that if you enable the note-taking function for the session, you will not be able to give the contributor mouse control to show you how they would interact with an experience.
• Colleagues that join the sessions must be logged in to their UserTesting accounts to have the note-taking feature available.

Joining by Telephone

Using a traditional telephone, you can join the Zoom session via teleconferencing/audio conferencing. This is useful on occasions where...

• You do not have a microphone or speaker on your PC/Mac.
• You do not have a smartphone (iOS or Android) while on the road.
• You cannot connect to a network for video and VoIP (computer audio).

Here are step-by-step instructions for joining via telephone. 

Inviting Colleagues

Once the moderator joins the Live Conversation, any colleagues can then join the session. The option to invite colleagues is available for any scheduled session. Once a session has been confirmed, you can add additional team members as colleagues by selecting Invite colleagues from the Actions menu next to the scheduled session. Your colleagues will receive an email confirmation with a link to join the session when it is time to do so.

You can also invite people by clicking the "^" symbol on the Participants button in your Zoom meeting controls, and selecting Invite.

Click Copy Invite Link or Copy Invitation if you want to send your instant meeting information elsewhere. Copy Invite Link will copy the join link, and Copy Invitation will copy the full invitation text. You can then paste the text using ctrl+V on a PC, command+V on a Mac, or by right-clicking and choosing Paste.

Each colleague will default to appearing as a "black box" on the screen, with the option to turn on their camera. 

💡Tip: If you do not want multiple colleagues to appear during a live session (to prevent the test contributor from feeling uncomfortable), they can log in on a single device and then broadcast the session in a conference room for additional team members to view. Only one colleague's black box will display in this setup during the live session.

Note: To ensure contributors are who they say they are, ask them to describe their most recent related experience at the beginning of the test. 

Hidden Observers

You also have the option to invite colleagues as "hidden observers." Hidden observers will be able to watch the interview as a live stream, but they won't be visible to those in the interview, nor can they interact with anyone in the session.

1. During the interview setup, ensure that you allow Anyone with the link to access the interview and that Stream interview sessions is turned on.

If the Hidden observers option is not enabled before the test, you can return to the scheduling screen and toggle it on. Hidden observers cannot interact or directly communicate with moderators, co-moderators, or contributors. Alternative communication methods, like Slack Channels and G-chat, are recommended.

Note: After a Live Conversation has been launched, you can edit to add hidden observers.

2. Next, navigate to the Invite colleagues modal from the Actions menu and copy the link to share with your hidden observers.

Note:  If you're using hidden observers, the stream will start when the moderator joins the session. The stream ends if, at any time, there are no participants left in the Zoom meeting. If you need to leave and re-join the Zoom meeting for some reason, please make sure there's at least one other participant in it in order to keep the stream active for your hidden observers.

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