First Live Study | LaBrowser Docs for Behavioral Studies

Setup is usually handled for you

Most LaBrowser studies have their configuration and setup handled for you as a managed service — you typically won't build this by hand. The steps below describe the full setup so you can understand what's involved for your study, or do it yourself if you prefer.

Researcher Preflight

Before recruiting real participants, review the study from the researcher side in the Study Console and make sure the study setup is ready.

Create or duplicate the study draft you plan to use for recruitment.
Verify allowed domains, input capture rules, response capture rules, experiment pane content, and max session length.
Publish the study and open the join link in a clean browser session to confirm the title, description, start-code flow, and download buttons look correct.
Open the study detail page and make sure you know where to watch incoming sessions, session activity, and exports once the rehearsal begins.

Participant Dry Run

Before sending real participants into the study, run one full trial from a real join page so you know exactly what the participant experience feels like.

Start from the join page you plan to share with participants.
Install LaBrowser, launch it, enter the start code, and confirm the study intro screen loads.
Open at least one allowed site, try one blocked site, and verify the participant-facing behavior is clear and non-technical.
Finish the rehearsal session and confirm the Study Console receives events, screenshots or snapshots if enabled, and a sensible upload timeline.
Use that rehearsal session to confirm exports and parser results work the way you expect before real recruitment begins.
Write down any step that required explanation. If you had to coach someone through it live, it probably belongs in the participant docs or join-page copy.

The dry run is where confusing study copy, missing domains, or install friction usually shows up. Fix those problems before sending real participants into the study.

Live Monitoring

During a live study, use the Study Console to keep an eye on incoming sessions and spot problems early.

Watch the study Sessions tab for new active sessions and for warnings that a session may have stopped syncing recently.
Open a session detail view when something looks off: it shows event counts, screenshots or snapshots, and recent upload activity.
Check screenshots or snapshots on active or recently finished sessions when your study depends on them.
Use session detail pages to separate participant confusion from actual capture problems before you ask someone to reinstall or retry.

You do not need to wait for a session to finish before checking whether data is arriving. The session view updates while the study is still in progress.

Recovery Handling

If a session stalls, finishes offline, or the participant relaunches after an interruption, start with the normal participant path before deciding the session needs special handling.

Ask the participant to relaunch LaBrowser first. Interrupted sessions can often resume and continue syncing on the next launch.
Give the session a moment to catch up before deciding it is incomplete.
If the session still looks incomplete, record what happened and decide whether the participant should continue, restart, or be excluded based on your study protocol.
Record whether the issue was an interruption, a participant install problem, or a study-design confusion point so you can improve the right surface afterward.

After the Study

Close the loop on the study while operational context is still fresh.

Export study events and derived data for backup, not just for analysis.
Run the parsers you need on the finished sessions and confirm output counts look plausible.
Review any sessions with sync warnings or incomplete uploads before declaring the study complete.
Write down every participant-facing issue you had to explain manually. Those are the best candidates for the next docs or onboarding sweep.