Managing Multi-Day & Multi-Phase Studies

Multi-day and multi-phase research can unlock richer insights—allowing you to observe participants over time, run diary studies, test prototypes, or follow up with deeper interviews after an initial activity. But because these studies introduce more moving parts, it’s important to understand the best features for multi-day studies in User Interviews and how to plan for smooth execution.

This lesson of Managing Live Projects breaks down:

• When to run a multi-day project vs. multiple separate projects
• How incentives work across phases
• Best practices that prevent delays or participant confusion

📹 Prefer watching to reading? This content is available as both an article and a video. Watch our Customer Success Manager, Kaylynn Knollmaier, take you through the content in the video below or keep reading to dive in!

When to use a multi-day project vs. multiple separate projects

Researchers often ask whether they should put everything into one multi-day project or create separate projects for each phase. The answer depends on how distinct each activity is.

Use a single multi-day project when:

• You have one continuous task that spans multiple days (e.g., a 5-day diary study).
• Participants complete similar tasks repeatedly (e.g., “submit a short video diary each morning”).
• You only need to pay participants once, at the end.

Use multiple projects when:

• Each phase has different formats (e.g., an unmoderated task followed by a 1:1 interview).
• You want to pay incentives per phase (UI cannot split incentives automatically).
• You expect attrition and want to send multiple reminders (for multi-day projects, participants only receive one reminder at the start of the project). 
• You want to send different screeners for each phase.

Note that the available features for running multi-day studies vary by subscription type. 

• PAYGO teams can run multi-day projects or two-project workflows by inviting participants manually to the next phase. 
• Recruit/Hub subscription teams can simplify multi-phase projects by re-inviting past participants, setting expectations in the screener survey, and splitting incentives by phase. 

Best practices for multi-phase project planning

A little foresight goes a long way. These strategies help you stay ahead of delays, drop-offs, and participant confusion.

1. Provide clear Instructions

In both the listing description and in screener messaging, be sure to provide explicit, step-by-step instructions about:

• What happens each day or phase
• Expected time commitment
• Submission requirements
• How and when incentives are delivered

2. Recruit more than your desired number of participants. 

Multi-phase studies naturally see drop-off. Plan to approve 1.5×–2× your desired number of final completions, especially for phases with longer time spans or high-effort tasks.

3. Build in buffer time for deadlines.

Set deadlines earlier than your actual project deadline to give participants some buffer time to complete tasks. For example, if your platform deadline is Friday, instruct participants to finish by Wednesday.

This gives you time to follow up with stragglers, spot any issues, and identify participants to invite into the next phase. 

Multi-day and multi-phase studies offer flexibility and richer insights, but they require thoughtful execution. By selecting the right project structure, planning for platform limitations, and following best practices around communication and recruitment, you’ll minimize friction while maximizing data quality and participant engagement.