Live website testing with Maze allows your team to run usability tests to understand how users are interacting with your live websites.
Previewing your mazes is a great way to ensure everything flows nicely, and that your users see what you want them to see. Testing your maze beforehand proactively prevents issues with the content and performance.
Learn more about previewing your mazes before publishing
There are several important aspects to take into consideration when viewing website tests as a participant:
- Supported languages
- Sensitive data
- Device resolution
- Ad blockers
- Starting the test
- Instructions
- Ending the test
Supported languages
You can test websites in any region and language. However, at the moment, the task interface for website testing blocks will only display in English.
Sensitive data
To ensure the privacy of your testers, Maze offers built-in screenshot anonymization options.
Depending on the selected anonymization option selected by the creator of the maze test, personally identifying information (PII) displayed or input by testers may be visible in the results.
If you set screenshot anonymization to Relaxed or Balanced, at the start of the maze testers will be warned that personal data may be visible to the maze creator:
All personal data shown on-screen and data you enter will be viewable by the test creator.
Testers will also see this message if you enable Clips recordings on the maze (regardless of the anonymization option you picked). This happens because there's no anonymization for Clips recordings.
Device resolution
When setting up a live website block, you’ll set a device type. This determines the resolution in which your live website task will be opened.
If your testers are on a desktop, they’ll be able to open both desktop and mobile tasks.
Mobile users will only be able to open mobile tasks, not desktop tasks. Opening a desktop test on a mobile device will lead to one of two errors:
This page needs a larger screen
Window size too small
When you start a website testing task, the window should automatically open in the correct size.
Avoid opening the task window in a new tab and/or in full screen, as it may exceed the maximum window dimension. In such cases, testers will see the following error:
Window size too large
If you see this error, you'll need to reduce the size of the task window.
We've put these limitations in size range in place to ensure that clicks correctly register in the results.
Screen dimensions
- Desktop tests: the task window must range between 1280 and 1380 px
- Mobile tests: the maximum size for the task window is 580 px
It's not currently possible to configure these screen dimensions on your end. If this is something you'd be interested in, please share your feedback with our team!
Ad blockers
Many popular ad blockers disable content loaded via tag management systems (namely Google Tag Manager). This means that, if you've installed the Maze snippet using Google Tag Manager, it's likely that testers using an ad blocker won't be able to load the website test correctly.
To avoid this issue, in these cases we display an additional warning to testers:
It looks like you're using an ad blocker
Before continuing the test, they should either:
- Open the test link in an incognito browsing window, or
- Pause the ad blocker on all sites until they are done with the testing.
To prevent users from going through this additional step, we recommend installing the code snippet directly on your website, if possible.
Starting the test
The first thing testers will see when interacting with a website test is an introductory screen with the task and description.
Clicking the Start task button will open your live website in a new window. A modal with the mission task and description will be displayed at the bottom left, but minimized once the tester starts interacting with your website.
If the tester returns to the maze before completing the task, they’ll see a reminder to finish the task:
Task opened in a new window
Go back to the task window to complete the task
Instructions
During a course of a website test, the instructions modal will appear by default on the bottom left corner.
It's possible to drag the instructions to a different part of the screen by clicking the Drag () icon.
Ending the test
Unlike prototype tests, the mission does not end automatically when the tester reaches the success screen (i.e. the final screen in a path), and a success message will not be displayed.
When the tester believes they've completed the task, they should click End task in the bottom left modal of the task window in order to end the mission and return to the maze.
Still need help?
If you have any questions or concerns, please let our Support team know — we'll be happy to help!