Speed up studies with slow results

Learn how to get results more quickly when your study is slow to complete. 

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👥 User roles: Owner, Admins, and Researchers
For more information, see our article on how to find your plan and user role.

On this page:

• Segments
• Screener Groups and Quotas
• Incidence Rate (Amount of disqualified participants)
• Conversion Rate (Drop off rate)

Segments

✅ Plan Availability: All plans

• Studies with many segments that have a low number of participants take longer to fill.
• When setting up your screener, try to limit the number of segments (For example, no more than 4).
• Use the same segment to soft launch and fully launch the study.
• Below is an example of too many segments:
  

Screener Groups and Quotas

✅ Plan Availability: Corporate, Essentials, Professional, International, and Premium

• Screener groups are only available for studies with the Advanced Screener enabled.
• Studies with too many screener groups take longer to complete.
• Pro Tip: Keep screener groups at a minimum to speed up finding the right participants.
• Learn about screeners in this UserZoom Academy course.

Incidence Rate (Amount of disqualified participants)

• Incidence Rate is the number of Completes divided by Completes + Disqualifies shown as a percentage.
  Completes / (Completes + Disqualifies) = Incidence Rate%
  • • For example, you have a study with 5 completes and 5 disqualifies. Your Incidence Rate is: (5 / (5 + 5)) x 100 = 50%
    • Incidence Rate is automatically calculated for Corporate, Essentials, Professional, International, and Premium plans, and can be found on the Monitor tab.
  • A low Incidence Rate means that many participants were disqualified.
• If you have a low Incidence Rate, ask yourself these questions:
  • Which question(s) disqualified participants?
    Check the Results for the screener, and apply the All participants filter.
  • Is the screener qualifying logic correct?
    • Verify your screener is set up correctly.
    • Check for mistakes in the qualifying logic, especially for multiple-choice questions.
  • Is the screener too narrow?
    • Make sure that the screener isn't too restrictive.
    • If that’s the case, consider relaxing some of the criteria.
    • Remember, when using more than 5 questions in your Screener Questionnaire, finding the right participants may be more difficult.
  • Do the screener questions make sense?
    Have a colleague, ideally not from your team, take the screener to check if it's easy to understand.
• Learn about screeners in this UserZoom Academy course.

Conversion Rate (Drop off rate)

• Conversion Rate is the number of people who completed the study divided by those who started it and is displayed as a percentage. (Completes / Completes + Disqualified + Drop Out)
  • For example, you have a study with 5 completes, 5 disqualified, and 5 dropouts.
  • Your Conversion Rate is: (5 / (5 + 5 + 5)) X 100 = 33%.
• When Incidence Rate is greater than Conversion Rate, this means you have participants who dropped out of your study. This can be due to:
  
  • Respondent fatigue
  • Poor study design
  • Other issues with the study
• If you're seeing a high number of drop offs, ask yourself these questions:
  • Do you have an effective Welcome page?
    Refer to Customize your Welcome Page.
  • Are the tasks too hard?
    • Find the tasks with the highest drop-off.
    • Are they understandable and doable?
    • Have a colleague, ideally not from your team, try them, and listen to their feedback.
  • Is the study too long?
    • Check the average time taken to complete it.
    • Recommended study length:
      • Desktop: 15 minutes
      • Mobile: 10 minutes
    • Try reducing the study duration or splitting it into more than one study.
  • Are you showing progress?
    • If the study feels long, let participants know where they are in the study or how many questions remain.
    • Add numbers on tasks (For example, 4/6).
    • Add messages throughout the study (For example, "You're halfway through!"). 
  • Is personal information putting people off?
    • Avoid asking for personal information or sensitive data (For example, bank account details). It could be illegal to do so under data privacy rules and regulations.
    • Always review your study before launching it.
  • Asking open-ended questions on mobile?
    • Studies with many open-ended questions can be harder to answer on mobile.
    • It's recommended to change the study device to Desktop, or consider changing open ended questions to video questions.
  • Is it a Mobile Study?
    • Mobile drop-off rates are naturally higher if there’s a video recording asking participants to download an app.
    • The Advanced UX Research method is not recommended on mobile if there’s no video recording and no Navigation tasks. This study type requires participants to download an app.
    • If the study does not have a Navigation task, use a Click Test, Tree Test, Survey, or Card Sort study.
  • Can participants take the study on a work computer?
    • To account for participants taking your study on their work devices, set it up so participants don't need the UserZoom Surveys extension.
    • Some companies don't allow users to install browser extensions.
  • Is it the timing?
    • Responses may be lower and slower when people are at work, on weekends, or on/around holidays.
    • Take into account the time difference in the country where you launch the study.
      • If you launch a study in the US from Europe in the morning, people may be asleep, and you won't see participants until later in the day.
      • If you launch the same study at night, people may be asleep, and you may not see participants until the next day.

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