User Interviews: Recruit Research Participants

User Interviews is a research recruitment platform that helps designers find, screen, schedule, and compensate participants for user research studies. Instead of spending days posting to social media, cold emailing customers, or begging coworkers for introductions, you define your target audience, create a screener survey, and access a vetted panel of millions—or bring your own participants and use the free scheduling tools.

Built for teams who take research seriously, User Interviews handles the operational headaches (no-shows, payments, scheduling chaos) so you can focus on asking good questions and synthesizing insights. Whether you’re validating a new feature with 5 users or running a 50-person diary study, the platform scales from scrappy startup research to enterprise research operations.

Key Specs

How Designers Use User Interviews

Recruit Exactly Who You Need

Stop settling for “whoever responds to the Slack post.” User Interviews lets you target by demographics (age, location, income), behaviors (uses Figma, shops online weekly), attitudes (early adopter, privacy-conscious), or B2B criteria (job title, company size, tech stack). The screener builder includes skip logic, quota limits, and disqualification rules so you only talk to qualified participants.

Design teams use this for everything from recruiting parents of toddlers who use meal kit services to finding engineering managers at companies with 50-200 employees who’ve evaluated design systems in the last 6 months. The specificity means your research findings actually apply to your target market instead of “we talked to 5 random people who said yes.”

Schedule Sessions Without Email Hell

You’ve recruited 12 participants. Now what? User Interviews auto-generates calendar links, sends confirmation emails, handles time zones, sends reminders, and even allows participants to reschedule themselves. Integrations with Zoom, Google Calendar, and Calendly mean you’re not manually creating meeting links or playing email tag to find a time that works.

When participants no-show (it happens), the platform helps you find replacements quickly. When you need to cancel, batch rescheduling tools save hours. Research coordinators love this because it turns a 3-hour admin task into a 10-minute setup.

Manage Incentives Automatically

Paying participants is surprisingly tedious: tracking who showed up, collecting PayPal info, reconciling expense reports. User Interviews handles all of it. You set the incentive amount ($75 for a 30-minute call, $150 for a 90-minute session), fund your account, and the platform automatically pays participants after you mark sessions complete.

Participants choose their preferred payment method (PayPal, gift cards, charity donation, etc.). You get automated tax documentation. Finance teams are happy because there’s a clean audit trail instead of mystery Venmo charges on credit cards. This alone saves 2-3 hours per study.

Build a Research CRM

The best research programs aren’t one-off projects—they’re ongoing conversations with users. User Interviews lets you tag participants (“power user”, “churned”, “design-savvy”), leave notes about their context, and invite them back for follow-up studies. Over time you build a database of people who know your product and can provide deeper feedback.

This is critical for longitudinal research (diary studies, beta programs), concept testing with the same cohort to see how opinions evolve, and building advisory panels. Some teams maintain 50-100 “research regulars” who they tap for quick feedback sessions, then use the broader panel to reach new audiences.

User Interviews vs Alternatives

Getting Started

1. Create a project and screener. Define your target audience with demographic filters, then add custom screening questions. Use logic branching to disqualify people who don’t fit (e.g., “If they haven’t used a project management tool in the last month, end survey”). Set quotas if you need balanced representation (50% mobile users, 50% desktop). Preview the participant experience to catch awkward question flow.

2. Choose your audience source. Recruit from User Interviews’ panel (fastest but costs per participant), import your own participant list (customers, email list—free scheduling tools), or do both (fill gaps in your customer base with panel recruits). For panel recruits, set your budget and incentive amount—the platform estimates how many qualified participants you’ll get.

3. Review applicants and schedule. As screener responses come in, review profiles and approve qualified participants. They’ll receive calendar links to book time slots you’ve marked available. The platform manages confirmations, reminders, and no-show replacements. After sessions, mark attendance and the system handles incentive payments automatically. Export session notes and participant data to your research repository.

Workflow Integration

User Interviews fits into research ops workflows with integrations that eliminate manual data entry. Connect to Airtable or Google Sheets to auto-populate participant databases with screener responses and session metadata. Use Slack notifications to alert the team when someone books a session or when you hit your recruitment goal.

Calendar integrations with Google Calendar and Outlook mean sessions appear on your calendar automatically with Zoom links attached. Zapier connections let you trigger custom workflows (add participants to Mailchimp lists, create Notion database entries, log sessions to project management tools). The API allows enterprise teams to build custom integrations with research repositories or CRM systems.

For teams using Dovetail, EnjoyHQ, or other research repositories, export participant data and session recordings with tags and metadata intact. Some designers use Calendly for personal scheduling but User Interviews for research-specific flows (consent forms, pre-session instructions, incentive tracking)—the two tools complement each other.

Common Problems

My niche audience isn’t getting enough applicants

Start with broader criteria and use screener questions to filter down instead of narrow demographic filters upfront. Consider breaking studies into phases (recruit a wider net, then invite the best matches back for deeper sessions). For very niche B2B audiences, try Respondent.io or supplement with LinkedIn outreach using User Interviews just for scheduling/payments. Increase incentives—hard-to-reach audiences need higher compensation.

Participants keep no-showing

Enable SMS reminders in addition to email (many people ignore email). Schedule sessions 3-5 days out instead of next-day to reduce flakes. Consider slightly over-recruiting (book 6 sessions to guarantee 5 shows). Increase incentives for inconvenient time slots. Some teams require a small deposit that’s refunded after attendance—User Interviews doesn’t have this built-in but you can use PayPal holds manually.

Screener responses seem suspicious

Turn on duplicate detection and require verified emails. Add attention-check questions (“Please select ‘somewhat agree’ for this question”). Review participant profiles before approving—User Interviews shows history and ratings from other researchers. For high-stakes research, consider phone screening approved applicants before scheduling full sessions. Report suspicious users to improve platform quality.

I’m spending too much on recruitment

Use your own participants for exploratory research and panel recruits for validation with fresh eyes. Reduce screener complexity—every additional question increases cost and decreases completion rates. Consider unmoderated methods (surveys, prototype tests in Maze) for broader sample sizes at lower cost, then use moderated interviews with smaller recruited groups for depth. Negotiate enterprise pricing if you’re recruiting 50+ participants per quarter.

Managing research across multiple time zones is chaos

User Interviews handles time zone conversions automatically but you still need to be available. Consider async methods (unmoderated tests, video diary studies) for global audiences. For moderated sessions, batch schedule by region (APAC week, EMEA week, Americas week). Hire contract researchers in other time zones to conduct sessions locally. Some teams record sessions and watch later instead of attending live for extreme time differences.