Rating and Following Up with Your UserTesting Contributors

With UserTesting, you have access to a large network of contributors who are diverse in demographics (e.g., age, gender, income), experiences, and interests. Providing feedback to contributors who take your test ensures that contributors provide useful insights to the experiences and products you are testing. Let’s review some things you should know.

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

• Rating contributors
• Following up with contributors
• Message Center

Rating contributors

How it works

To rate a contributor, find the contributor from either the Sessions view...

…or the video player (by clicking the blue play button), then select the appropriate number of stars for the contributor.

2. If you give a one or two-star rating to a contributor, the following dialog box opens for you to provide a reason for your rating:

Star rating system

We provide the option to rate a contributor’s performance based on how helpful they were for your test. To provide you with the best possible feedback, your tests will be distributed to highly rated contributors first. For this reason, we encourage you to rate contributors often.

Rate contributors using our five-star rating system:

5—Extremely Helpful

4—Very Helpful

3—Somewhat Helpful

2—A Little Helpful

1—Not Helpful

Five-star ratings are for contributors who provide honest and thorough feedback, and successfully complete all of the tasks while speaking their thoughts aloud.

One-star ratings should be reserved for contributors who completely fail to provide you with usable feedback. If you give a one or two-star rating, you will be prompted to select one of these main reasons for the rating:

• Instructions weren’t followed
• Speech was unclear or feedback was insufficient
• Demographics or screener requirements were not a match
• Trouble using UserTesting app or technical issue
• Personally Identifiable Information (PII) visible

If you select None of the reasons listed, a Description field displays, and you will be required to describe the reason and offer any optional comments.

After giving your rating, you will be presented with three options to resolve the problem (as seen here):

Note: If you replace the contributor or refund the session, you will no longer have access to the session video or its data. If you have Viewer or Collaborator status, you cannot refund the session. Viewers and Collaborators cannot request a refund.

Confidential ratings and comments 

You always have the option to keep your rating, and the description and comments behind the rating, confidential. If you are leaving any feedback you do not want the test contributors to be able to read, please select this option. If you do not select this option, your rating and other comments can be seen by the contributor:

All one- and two-star ratings will be reviewed by UserTesting staff and appropriate coaching will be given as needed. Test contributors sincerely appreciate positive comments or even constructive criticism, so feel free to leave these useful comments visible.

If your feedback skews more negatively, UserTesting will be happy to relay any coaching and feedback.

Following up with contributors

If you’re a subscription customer, and have a quick follow-up question for your contributor, you can contact the contributor after they complete your test.

How it works

1. Contact contributors from the Sessions view. First, click on the username to initiate a new message.

2. You can also begin a conversation from within the video player. Click on the contributor’s username.

Message Center

The Message Center holds all of your communication with contributors who have completed tests for you.

How it works

1. To view your messages, click the drop-down next to your account email address, then select Messages.

2. Click View Conversation to see your message history with a test contributor.

Contributors are usually happy to provide additional feedback but are not compensated for answering follow-up questions through the Message Center. It’s the contributor's discretion as to whether or not to respond. Find more information about how to message contributors here.

Note: It’s a violation of the Customer Terms of Use to solicit outside work from a test contributor. Customers and contributors should also refrain from sharing contact information with one another, regardless of the reason. In other words, all communication between customers and contributors should be kept within the Message Center. We appreciate your cooperation.

Please provide any feedback you have on this article. Your feedback will be used to improve the article and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete. Article evaluations will remain completely confidential unless you request a follow-up.