If you want participants to provide verbal feedback in your study then it’s important to ensure that your study is set up for this purpose!
Why do we use verbal responses in our research?
Verbal responses are great way to gather qualitative data for your study. It can help you find general themes or slight nuances about your designs which you may not have considered from a different perspective.
Its also a good way to capture the different sentiments or the tones of voice of the participant, which can provide deeper insight into the impact of your designs.
Verbal responses often capture the honest first impressions of participants as it allows you to hear their immediate thoughts and choices, unlike a written response, where they’ve had time to choose what they want to say
When do we need verbal responses?
Verbal responses are great for studies where it’s useful to hear a participant’s thought process or reactions.
For example, website tasks or prototype tasks can benefit from having a participant speak out loud about where they are looking to complete the task, or a specific UI that catches their eye.
However, ‘speak out loud’ tests are not limited to these types of question cards - you may want people to elaborate on an answer out loud and then ask for a written summarisation from them after.
Because a ‘speak out loud’ study needs to be set up in a specific way, its important to decide whether your entire study will need verbal feedback or if it is also suitable without.
We do not recommend using questions which give the participant the option to provide a verbal response or a written response, as this will confuse participants and make it difficult to collect data due to inconsistent data collection methods.
We also have an automatic quality control for verbal responses when Microphone is enabled for the study, in order to ensure that participants have submitted a valid response with audio.
This is another reason why your studies must be clear if they are required to speak if Microphone is enabled, or they will be rejected from the study if they do not provide a verbal response!
Note: This quality control is also why studies should not include questions which give the participant the option to speak OR type their answer. If microphone is enabled, participants who did not speak would be reported automatically.
These are our recommendations we’ve found that make it really clear for participants to speak out loud:
1. Ensure your study is set up correctly
To enable microphone recording for your study go to the ‘Build’ tab, and on the left hand side select the ‘Recording’ button.
Select the toggle for Microphone to enable recording.
Extra set up options!
Sometimes it’s useful to enable screen-recording and webcam recordings alongside microphone recording.
Screen-recording is useful with website tests or prototype tasks as you can see exactly which components the participant is referencing in their audio. (Screen-recording is only possible for desktop devices only. To choose which devices can enter your study, go to this help article: )
Webcam is useful to catch the visual emotions such as confusion or frustration which may not be captured in audio alone
Note: Enabling Microphone will also mean that responses that do not provide enough audio in their recording will be automatically rejected as part of our quality control for verbal responses.
2. Introduce participants to your study and your expectations
We’ve found that it’s helpful to prepare participants for your studies, particularly if they are required to speak out loud during or later on in the test.
The best way to do this is to write a small introduction in the Welcome step with a message such as “You will need to speak out loud during this study”.
This is an example of what your Welcome step may look like:
Additionally, having an Instruction step at the start of your study which explains your expectations of their response quality can also remind participants to stay vigilant and provide well thought out answers.
An example of this Instruction step could look like:
3. Use Instruction steps instead of Written question steps for speak out loud questions
Often times, participants get confused about whether they need to speak out loud if they see an answer box where they would need to type their answers, even though the study may include a prompt saying “Please speak your thoughts out loud”
✅ An example of the correct way to write a speak out loud question would be:
❌ This is an example of the mistake some customers make:
It is easy to see why participants may get confused about whether they should speak and write their answers, as there is clearly a text box for them to write.
❌ This is another mistake some customers will make:
Here, the customer is giving the participant the option to speak OR type, which means that participants who type without speaking will be rejected from the study if mic is enabled.
We have found that using instruction cards is the most effective way to ensure that participants are clear about the task, and that they should speak for these questions
Note: If you still want written feedback for the same question and your written question, then you can always add a written question step after your speak out loud instruction card. Your written question step would ask them to summarise the main points they had spoken out loud.
However, sometimes having too many steps in your study can quickly fatigue your participants so be sure to not overuse repetitive tasks!
4. Use lots of prompts throughout
It’s important that under every question/task which requires verbal feedback for, you will need to ensure that you have a ‘speak out loud’ prompt, so that the participant knows when to speak.
This applies to any website task, prototype task, card sort, first click, preference test, etc.
Be sure to bold your prompts too, so that they stand out!
Here are a couple of examples below:
If you have a lot of text to write on a task you can write a prompt before the task using an instruction card, and then have a small prompt on the task, for example:
If you are unsure about whether you've set up your study correctly or need any help reviewing your study before launching, feel free to get in touch via our 'Contact Us' chat or you can email [email protected] and someone from our research team will be in touch.
Happy researching! 😁