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

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.

• 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) has to join for the hidden observer stream to start.

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

Using the Joining with note taking feature

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.

Hidden observers

The Invite colleagues from the Actions menu allows you to invite others as hidden observers. Hidden observers will be able to watch the interview as a live stream. 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 methods, like Slack Channels and G-chat, are recommended.

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

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 black box will display in this setup during the live session.

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

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