Hubble’s Unmoderated Study Builder offers a wide range of question types to support different research needs, from quick feedback collection to in-depth usability testing. Standard options like multiple choice, open text, and rating scales help gather general insights, while advanced research methods such as card sorting, tree testing, and prototype tasks (with Figma imports) enable structured usability evaluations.
Whether you're testing navigation, validating design concepts, or assessing user sentiment, the diverse set of question types ensures flexibility in crafting studies that provide actionable insights.
Below are brief descriptions of each task type:
- Legal Screen: Present terms or consent before participants begin your study
- Ranking: Have participants rank options based on preference or importance by drag-and-drop
- Tree Testing: Evaluate your content hierarchy as users navigate for information within a structured tree
- Card Sorting: Understand how users categorize information by having them group and label items
- External Link: Direct participants to an external resource, such as a website or document
- Live site Test: Have users interact with a live website and complete tasks
- Prototype Test: Embed your Figma prototype to have participants interact and complete tasks
- Question: Collect data using different question formats like multiple choice, numerical scale, open text, and more
- Five Second Test: Assess first impressions by showing an image or interface for five seconds
- Text Statement: Provide participants with text information or instructions
- Randomizer: Utility module to shuffle the order of tasks for A/B testing or minimize bias
Legal Screen
The Legal Screen allows you to present participants with terms, consent forms, or privacy agreements before they begin your study. This ensures that users acknowledge and agree to any necessary legal disclosures, such as GDPR compliance, research participation consent, or confidentiality terms. Participants must accept these terms before proceeding, making it a crucial step for studies involving sensitive data or requiring explicit user permission.
- The legal screen is fixed at the very beginning of the study flow so that participants must accept the terms before proceeding
- You also have the option to embed the notice as external links
Ranking
The Ranking task lets participants arrange options in order of preference or importance using a drag-and-drop interface. This method helps researchers understand user priorities, trade-offs, or decision-making processes when comparing multiple choices. It’s useful for tasks like feature prioritization, content hierarchy evaluation, or gauging user preferences in product offerings.
- First, insert question details in title and additional text field.
- Select + Add another item to fill in items to be prioritized.
Card Sort
The Card Sorting task helps researchers understand how users naturally categorize and organize information. Participants are asked to group and label items based on their own mental models, providing insights into intuitive navigation structures and content organization.
This method/task is especially useful for improving website information architecture, menu structures, and labeling conventions to align with user expectations.
- Fill in the cards items. These are the individual items that participants will categorize or assign in groups.
- Fill in Categories if you wish to provide pre-defined categories (Closed card sorting).
- In the example, the participants will drag-and-drop the individual cards on the left side to the categories specified on the right side.
We also recommend our article on card sorting vs tree testing.
Tree Testing
The Tree Testing task evaluates how well users can navigate a structured hierarchy to find specific information. Participants are given a task and asked to select the category or path where they expect to find the answer, without the help of visual design elements. This approach is ideal for assessing the clarity and effectiveness of a website’s navigation, helping to identify areas of confusion or inefficiencies in content organization.
- Once you have filled in the task details, fill in the Tree Structure you wish to be evaluated.
- You can add sub-trees within each tree item.
- In a typical tree test, participants are tasked to select the end-node where they expect to find information about a certain item.
Live Site Test
The Live Site Test allows researchers to assign tasks and observe how participants interact with a real, live website. As users navigate the site, their interactions are recorded, providing valuable insights into usability, navigation patterns, and pain points in a real-world context. This method is ideal for evaluating established website's performance, identifying friction points, and understanding how users complete tasks in a natural browsing environment.
- Note that Live Site Test is different from External Link task. Live Site Test focuses on assigning a task for users to complete as they interact with the provided URL.
Prototype Task
The Prototype Test allows participants to interact with an embedded Figma prototype, helping researchers evaluate usability, navigation, and task completion within a design concept. Participants are given specific tasks to complete, enabling teams to gather feedback on layouts, workflows, and interactions before development. This method helps identify pain points, validate design decisions, and refine prototypes based on real user behavior.
Once you specified the task description, insert your Figma prototype link.
Toggle on/off whether you want to collect screen recording, audio, or video from participants.
Success Criteria: Decides whether you want to count task success only if participant follows a pre-determined user flow OR if participant reaches a certain end screen
Show hotspot hints on click: Participants will be able to see hints in blue highlights on where they could click while interacting with a prototype.
End task when last screen is reached: Enabling this option will automatically end the task when participants reach the end screen of the prototype flow instead of having them to manually select End Task during the study.
Ask a follow-up question: Enabling this option will let you ask questions based on whether participants succeeded or failed the tasks.
Question Task
The Question Task includes a variety of standard survey formats such as multiple choice, numerical scales, open text, and emoji ratings to collect structured and unstructured feedback. These flexible question types allow researchers to measure user sentiment, preferences, and opinions efficiently. Whether gathering quantitative data or open-ended insights, this task type helps capture diverse perspectives to inform decision-making.
- Based on the specific question type, you will have additional fields to specify.
Image Preference
If you are looking to quickly test a specific design element or design variations, you might want to look into using image preference question task. It presents you with multiple image files and have participants select one image. You can follow-up with questions to have them elaborate on their choices.
For a general guide on setting image preference task, see What are image preference questions and how do I use it?.
Five Second Test
The Five Second Test measures users' first impressions of an interface or design by briefly displaying an image and then collecting immediate reactions. This method helps assess clarity, visual appeal, and key takeaways from a design within a short exposure time. It’s particularly useful for evaluating homepage effectiveness, brand perception, and visual hierarchy to ensure that critical information stands out.
- Upload image that you wish to get evaluated
- You can specify the time the image is presented to participants (max 60 seconds)
- As shown in the example, a timer in red will show the remaining time before proceeding to the next task
Randomizer
The Randomizer is a utility task that allows researchers to shuffle the order of selected tasks, to minimize bias and improve the reliability of study results. It’s particularly useful for A/B testing, where different variations of a task need to be presented randomly to participants, or when ensuring that question order doesn’t influence responses.
- Specify the number of tasks to be randomized (maximum of 5). This means that the N tasks immediately following the Randomizer task will be affected by the randomization.
- Select the randomization Mode:
- Pick one task at random will only show one task randomly among the specified number of tasks to be randomized.
- Shuffle target tasks will shuffle the order of the tasks being presented. As shown in the example, this option can help you conduct A/B testing or randomize the order of presentation to avoid order bias.