Previewing Your Study

When releasing a new study, it’s important to run through the study as your participants will to ensure that the study appears and flows as you have intended. Previewing the study is an essential step to ensure that the content that you configured does not have spelling or grammar mistakes, and also that the steps that you have configured are working correctly.

QMethod Software has two mutually exclusive ways to preview your study as a participant would see it.

  1. Automatically Previewing From the Study Dashboard
  2. Manually Using a Participation Code

Automatically Previewing From the Study Dashboard

You can easily preview how your study will appear to your participants by following these steps:

  1. Navigate to the study dashboard for the study that you wish to preview
  2. On the study dashboard, select the “Preview Study” link on the right-side study navigation menu.

            study-preview-nav

  1. The study will appear as a full-screen overlay.
Note

The yellow bar at the top is a toolbar that appears only in preview, it will not appear to your participants.

  1. Run through the study as a participant, ensuring that your content appears as expected, and the steps that you have configured are also appearing as expected.
  2. When you’re finished, click the “Exit Study Preview” link in the top left of the preview. study-preview-close-preview.png

Manually Previewing Using a Participation Code

This method, as the title implies, involves manually using participation codes that you would temporarily use to preview your study. While the automatic preview from the study dashboard is a convenient way to quickly preview your study, this method allows you to test the sending of participation codes via email, and also allows you to check that any placeholders within your email, such as study links, are appearing in the email as expected.

Previewing Your Study Using a Participation Code

To manually preview your study using a participation code, follow these steps:

  1. From the study dashboard, click the Manage Participants link from the study navigation list
  2. Click the Add Participants button and select the method in which you would like to create a participation code. For this example, we will generate a random code by selecting “Generate Codes” from the dropdown list. To review the other ways to create participation codes, please read the Manage Participation Codes article.
  3. A side panel will appear, asking you how many participation codes that you would like to enter. Enter 1 to generate a single participation code.
  4. Note the participation code that was generated or copy it to your clipboard by highlighting the code and copying it.
  5. Go back to the study dashboard, and click the get study link button: get-study-link
  6. Enter or paste the code that you generated, the click the Submit button.
  7. Run through the study as a participant, ensuring that your content appears as expected, and the steps that you have configured are also appearing as expected.
  8. Once you have submitted your study, you should delete the participation code that you generated so that your test submission does not skew your analysis. To learn how to delete the participation code, read the article Managing Participation Codes

To preview your study from an invitation email, follow these steps:

  1. Ensure that your Invitation Email template is properly configured for your study and includes the Study Link placeholder within the template. For instructions on how to properly configure your email template, please review this help article
  2. From the study dashboard, click the Manage Participants link from the study navigation list
  3. Click the Add Participants button and select the method in which you would like to create a participation code. For this example, we will generate a random code by selecting “Generate Codes” from the dropdown list. To review the other ways to create participation codes, please read the Manage Participation Codes article.
  4. A side panel will appear, asking you how many participation codes that you would like to enter. Enter 1 to generate a single participation code.
  5. Click the participation code that was generated, to open the participation code side panel, enter your email address in the “Email” field, then click the Submit button
  6. Select the participation code by clicking the checkbox for the row, then in the “Select a Command” dropdown, select “Send Email Invitations”.
  7. Once you receive the email invitation, review the email to ensure it appears as you expected. Once you have reviewed the content of your email, click the study link in the email to open the study in the browser.
  8. Run through the study as a participant, ensuring that your content appears as expected, and the steps that you have configured are also appearing as expected.
  9. Once you have submitted your study, you should delete the participation code that you generated so that your test submission does not skew your analysis. To learn how to delete the participation code, read the article Managing Participation Codes