Conducting unmoderated research
Last updated: May 2, 2025
Once you’ve launched your study and started recruitment, there are some things to watch out for to make sure your study is successful. Use these tips to guide you through the logistics of conducting unmoderated research sessions, including tracking completions and scrubbing your data.
Tracking your completions
To ensure the progress of your study is accurately tracked, it's important that you provide to Perigean, in Slack, on a daily basis, the participant codes entered by participants along with a completion category to Perigean in Slack on a daily basis. Remember, Perigean doesn’t have access to your study and won’t know when you’ve fulfilled the requested amount of participants. As research leads, you play a key role in determining how participant data should be counted and which participants will be compensated.
If additional recruits are needed to reach goal numbers, requests can be made, to Shane Strassberg, near the end of the study for the number needed. Be sure to account for the time needed to gain approvals and recruit within your timelines.
Completion categories
Each participant should fall into one of the following categories, which Perigean uses to determine whether a response is counted or whether further action is required.
Complete, participated
Criteria:
A code was entered at the beginning and end of the activity
Participants provided at least 1 piece of usable data
What if the data is NOT usable?
If the data is NOT usable, send the participant code with the complete, participated category along with your reason why you determined it was unusable (see data scrubbing guidance)
What happens if the data is NOT usable?
Participants will be compensated regardless of whether their data is used in the results
You can request more recruits to reach your goal numbers
Complete, non-participatory
Criteria:
A code was entered at the beginning and end of the activity
Participant skipped all of the tasks/questions or provided no feedback
What happens in this case?
Perigean will encourage participants to try again and will give them one business day to complete the activity.
If, after follow-up, they do not attempt again or the data is incomplete and unusable again, Perigean will replace the recruit.
Participants are not compensated unless they repeat the test and move to complete, participation status.
Perigean will determine if this should be noted in their database entry, but it won’t impact future recruiting at this time.
Incomplete/abandoned, NOT usable
Criteria:
A code was entered at the beginning but not at the end of the activity because it was abandoned before completing it.
What happens in this case?
The data is deemed to be NOT usable because of a lack of data or invalid data provided (see data scrubbing guidance and include your reason why you feel the data is unusable).
Perigean will encourage participants to try again, and they'll be given one business day to complete
You can request more recruits to reach your goal numbers.
Participants will be compensated regardless if they try again
Incomplete/abandoned, usable
Criteria:
A code was entered at the beginning but not at the end of the activity because it was abandoned before completing it.
Data is deemed usable by the researcher because enough partial/valid data was collected (see data scrubbing guidance).
What happens in this case?
The participant will be compensated
Perigean will not recruit replacements
Learn more about how Perigean handles differing states of completion.
Data scrubbing guidance
Scrubbing your data is a good habit to get in to ensure the quality and reliability of the insights gathered. You can expect that 10 - 15% of your responses will need to be removed because of poor quality. Here’s some guidance to help you determine if your unmoderated user research data is not usable.
Duplicate responses
Repeated entries by the same participant should be marked as NOT usable.
Check for incomplete responses
Responses that are not fully completed, if the survey requires complete answers, should be marked as NOT usable.
Check completion times
Responses completed too quickly or slowly compared to the average may be deemed unusable, as these might indicate inattention or other issues.
Screen for nonsensical or irrelevant answers
Manually review open-ended questions for answers that don't make sense or are irrelevant to the question asked.
Look for patterns in responses
Responses that show a clear pattern (e.g., selecting the same option for every question), might indicate a lack of engagement and should be marked as NOT usable.
Review response consistency
Check for consistent answers to related questions. If a participant's answers are contradictory, consider marking their response as NOT usable.
For card sorts - placement of all cards into a single category
Keep an eye out for card sort respondents who place all of the cards in a single category or group. This may indicate low engagement and can help identify those who are speeding through without following the directive.
Document the steps you take during the scrubbing process, including a rationale for discarded responses or adjustments made to the data. This documentation helps maintain transparency and reproducibility of your research findings.
By following these steps, you can effectively clean your data and improve the quality of your unmoderated study.
Help and feedback
Get help from the Platform Support Team in Slack.
Submit a feature idea to the Platform.