Before sending a maze live, we recommend previewing and extensively testing it to confirm that everything works as intended. But, in some cases, you might need to go back and make adjustments after a maze has been published. For instance, if you need to fix a typo, or change the setup of a block.
This article walks you through the process and implications of editing a maze that has already been published.
In this article:
- What can I update on a live maze?
- Before you start
- Edit a live maze
- Viewing results for an edited maze
What can I update on a live maze?
Some changes can impact how testers experience the test and the accuracy of your results data. This is particularly sensitive if you’ve already started receiving responses on that maze.
Learn more about the changes you can make when editing a maze
Allowed changes
These changes won’t affect your data:
- Fixing typos or small grammar mistakes
Although allowed, you should note that some changes may impact how your testers interact with your maze, and affect your results:
- Editing task instructions
- Updating block settings
- Changing block order and/or conditional logic
Breaking changes
Other types of changes are considered breaking changes — i.e. those significant enough that it would be challenging to reconcile data collected before and after the edit.
Breaking changes are disabled on your blocks by default. To edit a disabled field, you’ll need to duplicate/hide that block.
Not allowed
Prototypes are linked to the entire maze, not to an individual block. For this reason, changing a prototype on a live maze would affect all mission blocks on a maze, which could lead to errors when running through the maze or its results and reporting.
For this reason, global prototype settings can’t be changed after sending a maze live, even if you duplicate the mission block. These include:
- Refresh or replace the linked prototype
- Toggle interactive components
To change any of these settings, you’ll need to duplicate the maze, or create one from scratch.
Before you start
- At the moment, it isn’t possible to refresh or replace the linked prototype on a live maze (learn more). If you need to refresh or replace a prototype, you’ll need to create a new maze altogether.
- When you edit a maze with an active panel order, any hired testers that have already completed the maze won’t be asked to participate again. Only new testers will see the edits you’ve made to a maze.
- All responses received prior to editing the maze will still be accessible in the results and the report. However, every time you edit a maze, the report is replaced with a new version. This means that any custom report content is lost. Learn more about how these changes affect the maze report
- Some edits aren't highlighted on the Results page. Learn more about viewing results for an edited maze
Edit a live maze
You can make non-breaking changes (e.g. editing the instructions) to the block directly.
However, breaking changes on the block will be disabled (e.g. changing mission paths, or the options on a card sort). This is meant to protect the integrity of your results data.
If you need to edit disabled fields, you have the option to create a new version of the block, and hide the original one.
To update a maze you’ve already sent live:
- Open your live maze and navigate to the Build tab.
- You'll see a confirmation modal outlining the implications of editing a live maze. To proceed, click Edit live maze.
- Allowed changes: To edit the instructions fields or make other allowed changes, you can edit the original blocks directly.
- Breaking changes: To edit a disabled field, open the More menu (•••) and Duplicate / Duplicate and Hide the block that you want to update. Make the necessary changes in the duplicated block. Be sure to hide the original block, if you don’t want testers to see it anymore.
- When you’re ready, click Update live maze to save your changes.
- You’ll see a modal listing all the changes you've made. If everything looks good, click Update to confirm the changes to the live maze.
This action is irreversible. Version control isn’t currently available in Maze.
Viewing results for an edited maze
Editing a live maze doesn't affect the responses you've already received. All responses received prior to editing the maze will still be accessible in the results and report.
Please note that the Results dashboard doesn’t highlight most changes. For instance, changes in the order of the blocks or in the conditional logic won’t be visible in the Results dashboard. Nevertheless, these changes may impact how testers respond to your maze. Please keep this in mind when editing live mazes and when viewing results for a maze that's been edited.
How do these changes affect the maze report?
- All responses received prior to editing the maze will still be accessible in the report.
- Every time you edit a maze, the report is reset—that is, the current version of the report is deleted, and a new version is created. This means that any report share links, embeds, report comments, and custom content are lost. This action can't be reverted. For this reason, you should be cautious around editing a maze if you've done significant work on the report, such as comment threads or custom sections/slides, or have distributed links to the report to your stakeholders.
- Hidden blocks are visible by default in the maze report. If needed, you can hide those blocks in the report.
- Changes in the order of blocks don’t affect custom slides. If you’ve added custom slides to your report and reordered the blocks in the maze, you’ll need to go back to the report and reorder the custom slides again.
How can I see changes in the blocks?
Hidden blocks are grayed out on the list of blocks in the results dashboard.
Can I merge duplicated blocks?
Generally, you'd duplicate a block on a live maze when making changes that are significant enough that it would be challenging to reconcile data collected before and after the edit.
For this reason, it isn’t possible to merge blocks, either in the maze editor or in the results/report.