Studies

Palette runs three study types: user studies, microstudies, and usability tests. Every launched study appears on the Research page and follows the same lifecycle: launching starts recruitment, each response appears under the study's Responses tab as its participant completes it, and once the study finishes Palette prepares a summary from the full set of responses. Until the summary compiles, the Summary tab reads Summary is being prepared.

The Responses count reads N of M: completed responses against the participant target set at launch. Only completed, qualified responses count; screened-out sessions never do. A study's status is one of:

• Active means the study is live and collecting responses.
• Paused means recruitment is paused. The study keeps its collected responses and can resume.
• Stopped means the study was ended early. Recruitment ends and the summary is prepared from the responses collected so far.
• Completed means the study reached its target and finished collecting responses.

The summary is organized as Findings, Contradictions, and Implications. Every item cites the participants behind it, and opening a citation shows the cited participant's response, so each conclusion can be traced back to its evidence.

User study

A user study is a full-length interview or survey. Participants answer the study's questions in the Palette portal. Recorded response questions capture video and audio; Written response questions use a free-text box with no camera or microphone. You can mix the two in a study that supports recording. Studies with Written responses and no recording questions also use typed screening answers. Participants can be recruited from Palette's participant pool or from your own users. Each response lists every question with the participant's answer, and the study completes when the target number of participants have responded.

Microstudy

A microstudy is a short study of one or a few questions, served inline to visitors on your own site through the snippet. Visitors answer in place without leaving the page, so responses arrive quickly and in volume. Microstudies use the same Responses count, statuses, and summary as user studies.

Usability test

A usability test asks participants to complete tasks on your site while Palette captures how they do. On top of the shared vocabulary above, each response reports:

• Goals reached: how many of the study's tasks the participant completed, as N of M.
• Task outcome: per task, Direct success, Indirect success, Gave up, Timed out, or Incomplete. Not attempted means the participant never started the task. No interaction data recorded means the participant answered the task's questions but no interaction capture arrived; it marks a gap in the data, not a failed task.
• Task time: the time from starting a task to reaching its goal.
• Total friction: the number of friction events across the participant's attempted tasks: rage clicks, dead clicks, hesitation, and backtracking.
• SEQ: the Single Ease Question, answered after each task on a 1 to 7 scale where 7 is easiest. Average SEQ is the participant's mean across tasks; the summary also reports it per task across participants.
• Replay: when session recording captured, the response includes a replay of the participant's screen. When it did not, the response reads Replay is not available for this participant.

The usability summary reports per-task success rates, median times, and ranked friction issues ordered by severity, each citing the affected participants.