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Describe what you want to learn and Pillow drafts the whole study, ready for you to review. You then refine it in the Study Builder, by chatting or by editing the study page directly, until it is ready to preview and go live.

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Draft the study

1

Describe your objective

Click Create in the app sidebar. Under “What do you want to learn today?”, describe your objective in plain language and send it:
Our checkout funnel is: browse, add to cart, enter payment, confirm order. Most people who abandon leave at the payment step. I want to understand what makes them leave and what would get them to finish.
If your organization has a Pillow.md, the builder uses it to write questions about your product.
2

Answer the setup questions

The builder asks how participants should take the interview:
  • Video interview: participants answer each question on camera, and you watch each answer as a clip. See Run a video interview study.
  • Text chat: participants type or send voice messages to the agent, and you read each interview as a transcript.
You can switch with Interview type on the study page until the study goes live.It then asks how you want to build your interview guide:
  • Questions: every participant hears the same wording, so you can compare answers across interviews.
  • Topics: the agent phrases each question from what the participant has said so far, which leaves room for answers you didn’t expect.
If your objective is broad, the builder may first ask what you expect to find, who you want to hear from, or what decision the study should inform. Questions and topics explains the difference in depth.
Pillow drafts the whole study. Start your review with the Interview guide section: it decides what participants are asked.

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Refine it in chat

Ask for changes in the chat, and the builder edits the study page:
  • “Add a topic on whether shoppers trust us with their card details”
  • “Remove Q3, we already know about cart abandonment”
You can attach up to 4 images (PNG, JPEG, or WebP) or videos (MP4, MOV, or WebM, up to 100 MB) to a chat message, such as screenshots of your payment page or a recording of the checkout. The builder attaches them to the guide items where participants should see them, and asks how to split them when you send several. The builder doesn’t watch a video, so say what it shows and what you want to learn from it. Choose Figma prototype from the attachment menu to paste and preview a publicly viewable prototype link. Describe what participants should explore and what you want to learn. To manage attachments on each item, see Write your interview guide. The quality chip in the builder’s top bar reviews your setup as you work and offers fixes you can apply from the chat; see Launch a study.

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Edit the study page directly

Click any text on the study page to edit it in place, including the title (up to 65 characters). Changes save automatically.

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Set the study depth

Study depth sets how many follow-up questions the agent asks on each guide item, from Express (none) to Deep (the most). Balanced is the default. Each guide item can override it with its own follow-up depth.

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Set your study goals

Study goals is a short statement of what the study is for. Pillow drafts it from your objective and updates it as the guide changes, until you edit it yourself. Study goals steer how Pillow drafts and checks your study and how it analyzes the interviews.

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Set who takes part

Participants arrive through the study link you share. See Share your study.

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Set a completed interview limit Optional

On the study page, in Completed interview limit, type the number of completed interviews after which the study ends on its own. Leave it empty for No limit, the default. End a study explains what counts toward the limit and what happens when it is reached.

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Screen participants Optional

A screener asks short choice questions before the interview, so only the participants you want to hear from reach it.
  1. In the Screener section, click Add question and write the question and its answers.
  2. Mark each answer Qualifies or Screens out. Each question needs at least one qualifying answer.
  3. On a Multiple choice question, pick the rule: All must qualify (the default) screens out a participant who picks any screening-out answer, and At least one qualifies lets them through as soon as one qualifying answer is picked, whatever else they pick.
A screened-out participant sees a thank-you message and never reaches the interview. Each interview’s metadata shows the participant’s screener answers. Screener questions are translated into every study language, and going live waits for those translations. To try the screener yourself, use Preview or the test link: a screening-out answer ends the session as it would for a participant.

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Undo changes and restore versions

Every change to the study setup, from the chat or from the study page, is saved as a version.
  • Undo and Redo are in the builder’s top bar, with the shortcuts ⌘Z and ⌘⇧Z (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z on Windows). The chat stays as it is.
  • In History, select a version and click Revert to this version to make it current again. Later versions stay listed as undone until your next edit replaces them.

Customize your agent

Set the agent’s name, avatar, tone, and reveal policy.

Studies

The states a study moves through and what each allows.