Pre-screen participants

Learn creative ways you can find the right people to take your test.

This article applies to: ut logo tiny.pngUserTesting 

On this page:

 


 

What is pre-screening?

  • Before launching your actual test, conduct an unmoderated test to identify the right participants.
  • You may want to screen potential people beyond what you can do with screener questions. For example, you might want to hear how someone talks about an issue, or have them show you an app they use before you decide to include them in a particular test. 
  • In the initial test, you'll create tasks for participants to further explain their screener responses. 
  • Once you find the right people for your test, you can recruit them for your unmoderated or Live Conversation test.

Follow the steps below to pre-screen participants:

 

 

How to pre-screen participants

When using an initial test to recruit participants, here are some tips:

 

Send an initial test

  • Launch your recruitment test as a website test. You can select "blank page" to just have participants answer your questions or complete any tasks.
  • Use the first screener question to explain that the initial test is to screen for participants who are a good fit.
  • Recruit more than you need. Not all participants in this first test will meet the requirements for your target audience.
  • Have participants answer questions out loud.
  • Verify that participants use certain websites, products, or features.

Review the results

  • Review the participants' responses to your screener questions and tasks to identify who is the best fit.
  • Use the Export to Excel tool to review any written responses.

Manage your participants

  • Depending on your needs and subscription, you may add participants to a Favorite contributors group or Custom Network and manage your recruitment there. You can also specify contributors for a test.
  • For example:
    • Jaida has identified participants from the pre-screening test. Jaida only wants to launch one follow-up Live Conversation test with these participants, so she specifies the participants to include.
    • Sam has identified participants from the pre-screening test. He's adding half the participants to a Favorite contributors group of consumers who use Apple Pay. He's adding the other half to a Favorite contributors group of consumers who use Venmo.

Launch the actual test

While the screening test is unmoderated, you can leverage Live Conversation for your actual test and talk directly to the participants you screened.

 

 

Related content

information icon.png

knowledge icon.png

Want to learn more? Check out these Knowledge Base articles... 

Interested in growing your skills? Check out our University courses...

video icon 2.png

team icon.png

Need hands-on training?

Can't find your answer?

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. 

Was this article helpful?