There are different ways you can have your maze tested: you can share the maze link with your own participants, or hire testers from the Maze testers panel.
This article covers recruiting testers from the Maze testers panel, which is powered by Prolific. If you need help finding your own testers, please read our definitive guide to recruiting research participants.
In this article:
- Who can use this feature?
- Before you start
- Current limitations
- Pricing
- How many testers do I need?
- Targeting criteria
- Placing an order
- When to expect results
- How to stop a hired test order
- Reporting a hired tester
Who can use this feature?
The Maze panel can be used across all plans.
All team members can place hired tester orders.
Before you start
- Make sure you're aware of the current limitations when recruiting testers.
- You must agree to the Panel Terms of Service.
- Be mindful of the length of your tasks. An unreasonably time-consuming maze may cause testers to feel underpaid and abandon the test, leading your order to go unfulfilled. Pay attention to blocks that can be particularly time-consuming, such as prototype tests or card sorts. Make sure you're not asking participants to do too much given the compensation they'll receive.
- Ensure that your questions and tasks are clearly defined. Use context screens whenever needed. Learn best practices for introducing your maze to testers
- Always preview and test your maze thoroughly before placing an order. For instance, if testers get stuck on a prototype test, or if there's a problem with your conditional logic, you may find that your results aren't as usable as they could've been. It's important to verify your test can be completed fully before placing an order.
Current limitations
- At the moment, it isn't possible to use Clips with hired testers. To record tester sessions, you must source your own testers.
- If you're doing A/B testing, please be aware that we don't currently have a way to prevent testers from taking both tests.
- It's not possible to have hired testers use the PWA to complete a maze.
- We don't currently support screening questions. The only way you should screen testers is by using the targeting filters available when placing the order. If you exclude hired testers from completing your test using your own custom knock-out/screening questions or conditional logic, you'll pay for each tester session. Testers from our panel are entitled to compensation for participating and mustn't be screened out in this way, and shouldn't be reported.
Pricing
Buying credits for an individual maze
If you buy tester credits within an individual maze, you can order between 1 and 250 testers. Recruiting testers starts at $5 per tester, and gets cheaper with volume.
Buying credit bundles
If you buy credit bundles in bulk via app.maze.co/credits, you can use them across all your projects when ordering testers.
You'll be able to purchase the following bundles:
- 50 credits: $5.00 per tester
- 100 credits: $4.75 per tester
- 500 credits: $4.5 per tester
How many testers do I need?
In quantitative studies, the more users you can test with, the better the chance your results are accurate. As a general rule, we recommend testing with at least 20 users.
Having more testers can be particularly helpful when doing card sorting: as more testers participate, agreement rates become easier to interpret, and you start seeing more meaningful patterns in the data.
Learn more about the ideal number of testers
Criteria
The Maze panel is powered by Prolific. To learn more about the participants, please refer to Prolific's help documentation.
You can select the following screening criteria:
- Targeting: Gender, Age, Language, Country, Supported devices, Industry
- Advanced: Education level, Highest education level completed, Employment status, Role, Personal income (GBP), Household income (GBP/USD). Advanced filters are available for Organization plan users.
Learn more about the available panel filters
Placing an order
To place an order for hired testers:
- First, you need to create a maze and send it live. If you need help creating a maze, read our guide to help you get started.
- On the Share page of your live maze, click Hire from our Panel.
- Agree to the Panel's Terms of Service.
- Number of testers: Select the number of participants you want to include in the hired tester order. How many testers do I need?
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Targeting: Fine-tune the targeting criteria for potential participants, including gender, age, language, and more.
More restrictive criteria will shrink the pool size of potential participants. Working with a smaller participant pool may delay the fulfillment of your order. Learn more about the estimated pool size
- Advanced criteria: If you're on the Organization plan, you may select advanced filters for your testers, including education level, employment status, income, and more.
- Double-check your order details. Please note that you won’t be able to edit the filters after placing the order. If you want to stop an order before its completion, please follow the steps in this section.
- Once you’re ready, click Continue to payment.
- On the payment step, enter your credit card number. We accept major debit/credit cards.
- To complete the order, click Pay and hire testers.
When to expect results
Results start coming in as soon as your order is placed. Though orders are often fulfilled quickly, please note that we don’t guarantee a particular turnaround time. Every hired tester order stays active until completed.
There are a few factors that can extend the turnaround time for tester orders:
- Demographic filters may constrain the pool of potential testers, and extend the turnaround time accordingly.
- The length of the test can also play a role. If the test is longer than average, you’ll see a higher rate of testers abandoning it or not picking it up at all, which also slows down turnaround time.
Hired testers who completed the maze will appear in your Results dashboard with a "Panel session" label beneath their tester ID in the list of testers.
Please note that hired testers who started the maze but haven't completed it will appear with an "Anonymous session" label instead. Learn more
How to stop a hired test order
Tester orders do not stop automatically; they will stay active until the number of testers you've selected has completed your maze.
In some cases, you might want to stop a hired tester order before it runs its course. For instance, if you need to change the demographic filters (since those cannot be edited on active orders).
What happens when an order is stopped?
After stopping the test, any unused tester credits will be available in your credit balance.
Stop an order
To stop a hired tester order, simply stop your maze from collecting new results. You can do this in the maze settings.
Archiving the project or deleting the maze will also stop any active orders and refund you any unused credits.
Reporting a hired tester
When recruiting testers from Maze, the quality of the test results you receive is our biggest concern.
Our goal is to ensure that you get results quickly and that you can trust the results to make informed decisions confidently, based on the data you've collected.
If a hired tester hasn't met your standards, you can report them from within your project's test results. Learn more here: Reporting a hired tester
Still need help?
If you have any questions or concerns, please let our Support team know — we'll be happy to help!