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Experimenter-Participant Messaging

HyperStudy includes a two-way messaging system that allows experimenters and participants to communicate during a live experiment session. Experimenters can broadcast messages to participants in a room, and participants can send help requests back to the experimenter.

When to Use Messaging​

Messaging is designed for real-time support during experiments:

  • Experimenter → Participant: Notify participants of schedule changes, provide hints if someone is stuck, or deliver instructions that weren't part of the original design
  • Participant → Experimenter: Participants can ask for help if they encounter confusion, technical issues, or need clarification
caution

Messages are delivered during active experiments. Keep them short and supportive — participants are mid-task and lengthy messages can be distracting or influence their responses.

Enabling Participant Messaging​

By default, participants cannot message the experimenter. To enable this:

  1. Open your experiment in the Experiment Editor
  2. Navigate to the Settings section (in the experiment metadata)
  3. Check Allow participants to message the experimenter
  4. Save the experiment

When enabled, participants will see a floating Help button during the experiment. When disabled, participants have no way to initiate contact.

tip

You can enable or disable this setting at any time. Changes take effect for new sessions — participants already in an active session will keep whatever setting was active when they joined.

Sending Messages to Participants​

You can send messages to participants from the Deployment Tracking dashboard.

How to Send a Message​

  1. Open the deployment tracking view for your active deployment
  2. Find the session (room) you want to message in the session table
  3. Click the Msg button in the Actions column
  4. A compose modal appears showing the target room
  5. Type your message (up to 1,000 characters)
  6. Click Send

What Participants See​

When you send a message, participants in that room see a banner at the top of their screen:

  • The banner is labeled Experimenter so participants know who sent it
  • The message text appears below the label
  • The banner automatically dismisses after 10 seconds
  • Participants can also dismiss it early by clicking the close button
  • If you send multiple messages in quick succession, they stack vertically

Targeting​

Messages are broadcast to all participants in the room. There is no option to message a single participant within a multi-participant room — everyone in that session sees the same message.

Receiving Messages from Participants​

When participant messaging is enabled, participants can send messages to you from within the experiment.

What Participants See​

Participants see a floating Help button in the bottom-right corner of the experiment interface. Clicking it opens a compose modal where they can type a message (up to 1,000 characters) and send it.

After sending, participants see a brief confirmation message before the modal closes automatically.

What You See​

Incoming participant messages appear in the deployment tracking dashboard:

  1. Alert column badge: A numbered badge appears in the Alert column for that session, showing how many unread messages have been received
  2. Click to view: Click the badge (or the View msgs button in the Actions column) to open the message thread
  3. Message thread: The thread shows all messages from participants in that room, with sender name and timestamp
  4. Reply: You can reply directly from the message thread — your reply is delivered as an experimenter message banner to the room

Message Notifications​

Messages arrive in real-time via WebSocket. You will see the badge count update immediately when a participant sends a message — no need to refresh the page. However, you must have the deployment tracking view open to see incoming messages.

Best Practices​

  • Keep messages short: Participants are mid-task. A brief, clear message is far more effective than a paragraph.
  • Monitor the Alert column: During active data collection, keep the deployment tracking dashboard open and watch for message badges and stuck indicators.
  • Use for support, not experimental manipulation: Messaging is a support channel. Avoid using it to deliver experimental stimuli or instructions that could bias responses — use experiment states and components for that.
  • Enable selectively: Only enable participant messaging for experiments where real-time support is valuable. For simple, self-paced experiments, it may be unnecessary.
  • Respond promptly: If a participant asks for help, they are likely blocked. A quick response prevents frustration and potential data loss from abandoned sessions.

Next Steps​