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 panel.
This article covers sourcing testers from the Maze panel, which is powered by Prolific and Cint.
Learn how to source your own testers in 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?
- Criteria
- Placing an order
- Order summary
- When to expect results
- How to stop a hired test order
- Reporting a hired tester
Who can use this feature?
The Maze panel is available on 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.
- 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 clear. 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. It's important to verify your test can be completed fully 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.
Current limitations
- 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
Hiring testers for an individual maze
If you hire testers for a specific maze, you can order between 1 and 250 testers, at $5 per tester.
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
The cost of hiring testers is the same regardless of the plan you're on.
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: with more testers, agreement rates become easier to interpret, and more meaningful patterns start emerging in the data.
Learn more about the ideal number of testers
Criteria
The Maze panel is powered by Prolific and Cint. To learn more about the participants, please see Prolific's and Cint's documentation.
You can select the following screening criteria:
- Basic: Country, Age, Sex
- Advanced: Demographics & Geography, Work & Education, Health & Well-being, Family & Relationships, Beliefs, Interests & Lifestyle, Technology & IT, Shopping & Consumer Habits, Finance & Banking, Research, Other. Advanced filters are available for Organization plan users.
Learn more about the panel filters
Placing an order
Before placing an order for hired testers, you need to create a maze and send it live. If you need help creating a maze, read our guide to get started.
On the Share page of your live maze, click Hire from our Panel.
Step 1: Criteria
- Select a Country to source your testers from.
- Optionally, you can also refine their Age and Gender.
- If you're on the Organization plan, you can also select advanced filters for your testers.
Step 2: Settings
- Select the number of participants you want to include in the hired tester order. How many testers do I need?
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If needed, select the type of device you want participants to take the test. Panel testers can test on the following devices: Desktop, Mobile, Tablet.
If your maze includes a prototype or website test, the supported devices are automatically pre-selected based on the dimensions of your screen. It's not possible to order tests for devices that wouldn't support the size of the screens used in the maze. This means that, when testing a desktop prototype or website, you can only hire testers on desktop devices. If testing mobile screens, you can only hire testers on any type of device.
Step 3: Check-out
- 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.
- Select your payment method. If you've purchased a credit bundle, you can use your available credits. Otherwise, you can pay for this individual order with your credit card. We accept major debit/credit cards.
- Before proceeding, you must agree to the Panel Terms and Conditions.
Order summary
After placing a panel order, you can see a summary of the order on the Share page. To do so:
- Open the Share page for your maze with a tester order. Tester orders will appear on that page.
- Click the panel order row to view the order summary.
- The summary includes all order details, such as the number of testers and the applied filters.
When to expect results
Results start coming in as soon as you place the order. Orders are often fulfilled quickly, but Maze doesn't guarantee a particular turnaround time. Every hired tester order stays active until completed.
A few factors can extend the turnaround time for tester orders:
- Targeting filters may constrain the pool of available testers and extend the turnaround time.
- 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 targeting filters, since you can't edit them 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 about 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!