Struggling to find the right participants for your research studies? Learn how screener surveys can help!
In this video, we explain what screener surveys are, when to use them, and how to set them up in Lyssna. Discover how to ask the right questions to quickly identify suitable participants for targeted research. With practical tips and best practices, you can improve your participant selection process and enhance your research efficiency. Watch to explore the benefits of screener surveys and boost your research outcomes.
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction to screener surveys
0:19 - What are screener surveys?
0:58 - When should you use a screener survey?
2:02 - Best practices for writing screener questions
3:57 - Setting up a screener survey in Lyssna
6:20 - Summary
Resources:
Read our article on how to write screener questions
Read our usability testing guide
Read our UX research guide
Transcript
Are you struggling to find the right participants for your research studies? Adding a screener survey might help. I'm Diane and in this video we'll walk through what screener surveys are and when to use them. I'll also show you how to set up a screener survey in Lyssna.
So what are screener surveys exactly? Well they're pretty much what they sound like. By asking potential participants some key questions, you can gather important information about them, from demographics like age and location, to behaviours and experiences, such as how often they use certain products, and even what their technical skills are.
This can help you in a couple of ways, like making sure that you're getting feedback from the right people, and saving you time and resources. By quickly identifying suitable participants up front, you can focus on gathering and analysing feedback more quickly.
Screener surveys have some clear benefits. But you don't necessarily need to add one to every interview study or usability test you do. If you're recruiting participants from a user research panel, like the one we offer at Lyssna, there are often filters already built in to help you narrow down who you want to recruit, like age, income bracket, and hobbies.
So when are screeners ideal? If your study has specific participant requirements, adding a screener can be a good idea. This could be when you're conducting really targeted research. Like understanding the needs of users who rely on assistive technologies, for example. Or when you're concentrating on a sensitive topic and want to make sure that participants are comfortable sharing their experiences.
If your research needs specialized knowledge, screener questions can help you find participants with the right skills. For example, interviewing cyber security professionals. And for product testing, they can help you find people with relevant experience using similar products.
Okay, let's get into some best practices for writing screener questions. First, define clear research goals. Know exactly what you want to learn from your participants. Next, identify ideal participants by considering factors like age, location, interests, and behaviors. Another tip is to avoid asking leading questions.
Sometimes the questions we ask can influence participants to answer in a certain way because they're trying to qualify for our studies. So for example, instead of saying, Do you own a Toyota? You could ask, which of the following cars do you own? And add a list. Also, don't share too much information about the study to avoid influencing answers.
Instead of saying we're researching a new fitness app, you could say we're conducting a study on health and wellness apps. Next, arrange your screener logically, starting with general questions and then moving on to more specific ones. This helps to keep participants informed. And ensures you're only collecting relevant data.
And keep your screener short and to the point. A short screener is more likely to be completed, especially when you're looking for people with specific traits. When it comes to the questions themselves, use clear and simple language, and be specific when describing how often something happens. Words like often, rarely, and sometimes can mean different things to different people.
Instead, use specific numbers or ranges like once a week or once a month. Also, offer different options to choose from, like other, I don't know, or none of the above. This way, people don't have to pick an answer that isn't right just to move on to the next one. question. And finally, always preview your screener to make sure it's clear and easy to understand.
I'm now going to head to the Lyssna app to show you how to set up a screener for your study. So I'm here in the Lyssna dashboard, and I'm going to create a new study and select test or survey. You can also set up screeners for interview studies. I'm going to call my test travel survey, and then I'm going to enable a screener.
So for my study, I'm interested in surveying people who are actively travel hacking for a new tool I'm working on. I'm going to be recruiting from the Lyssna research panel. So I don't need to ask general questions here because I can add filters like country and household income when I place my order.
Instead, I want to ask a couple of really specific questions. So the first question I'm going to ask is a multiple choice question. Which of the following types of rewards programs are you most interested in? And then I'm going to enter my options. I'm also going to randomize the order that the choices are displayed in.
I'm going to qualify anyone who responds with travel and then mark the rest as not relevant. The reason not relevant comes into the mix is when it's a multiple [00:05:00] choice question, and there are choices that neither qualify or disqualify on their own. So in this scenario, if someone chooses travel, they'll qualify.
If they choose travel and retail, they'll also qualify. But if they just chose retail on its own, they won't qualify because no qualifying answer was selected. Essentially participants must select at least one qualify option in order to take part. I'm going to add one more screener question and make this a single choice question and then I'm going to enter my responses.
Because this is a single choice question, I'll disqualify anyone who chooses never and qualify anyone who chooses any of the other options. From here I can continue to build out my survey by adding a questions section. I'll quickly show you what your participants will see. So they'll receive an invitation to take the survey.
And they'll be greeted with a message letting them know that it includes an eligibility screener. They'll [00:06:00] go through the screener
and if they're successful they'll automatically be invited to take the survey.
If they're unsuccessful they'll see this screen letting them know that they're not eligible. As you can see screener questions could be a really handy tool for user research. By using these tips and examples, you can improve your participant selection process. If you're looking for more screener survey tips, we'll include some links to handy resources in the description.
If you found this video helpful, don't forget to like and subscribe for more research tips. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one.
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