Solid studies are built with tasks and questions. A task is a combination of instructions and a link with a few options.

Instructions

Be very clear, about what the user should accomplish. Start with the goal in one sentence, because this will be, what the user will see during the task. Explain further, how to achieve the result if necessary and when the task is finished. Always give the tester a way out for more complex tasks.

Examples:

Check out what AwesomeCorp offers without leaving the page.

Find the insurance certificate for your tax declaration. You can complete the task when you found the section in the app or you don’t find it at all.

Don’t ask questions, rephrase them to tasks. Example: instead of ‘What grabs your attention on this page?’ you would write ‘Tell us, what grabs your attention on this page.’

<aside> 🔥 Pro tip: Don’t brief users that they should think aloud. Anna will do this for you.

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Think-aloud reminders

Anna reminds participants to think aloud when they get silent. For cognitively demanding tasks (such as card sorting via an external service), we recommend disabling think-aloud reminders. They are designed to remind testers through usual user testing scenarios.

Link

You can link to a prototype, website, or native app through a Universal Link. Make sure the link is publicly available or at least available for your testers.

Open link in the same window

You have the option to open the link in the same window (iFrame) or in a new window (new tab). We recommend using the same window whenever possible. If you are testing a Figma prototype, it will work in the same window. Other links have to be tested first.

<aside> 📱 Due to technical limitations on mobile, think-aloud reminders do only work for links that open in the same window.

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Skip feedback after the task

After a task is completed, Anna asks for general feedback (like «How was it?»). If you want to skip this general feedback, you can skip it. This can be useful if you include preparation tasks, like a log in that is not part of the test, but necessary.