Once the setup is right, an interview runs without you. You send a link, people open it in a browser and talk with Buildpad, and the responses land on the canvas while you get on with other things. This page covers how to share the link, how to control who can respond, and what the person on the other end goes through.

Sharing the link

Every interview has its own link, in the form buildpad.io/interview/k7m2xq4p. Buildpad puts it in the chat when it sets an interview up, and you can find it again any time:

• Tap the card to open it. Until the first response arrives, the reader shows the link with a copy button and a QR code.
• Select the card and open its menu. Copy link is always there, also once responses have come in.

Anyone who has the link can take the interview. They do not need a Buildpad account or an app, only a browser with a microphone, on a phone or a computer. The QR code is for the moments when a link is awkward: show it on your screen at a market stall or print it on a card, and whoever scans it lands straight on the interview.

The page is not listed by search engines, but the link works for anyone who has it, so share it where your respondents are and nowhere else.

Open and closed

The status pill on the card toolbar reads Open or Closed. Click it to switch.

• Open: the link accepts new people.
• Closed: people who open the link see "This interview is closed". Someone in the middle of a conversation is stopped at their next answer. The responses you already have stay where they are.

Close an interview when you have enough responses, and reopen it whenever you want more.

Resetting the link

If the link ends up somewhere it should not be, choose Reset link from the card menu and confirm. The interview gets a new link, and the old one shows "This interview link is no longer active". Responses you have collected are kept.

What a respondent goes through

Here is the interview from Priya's side, a Two Ends customer who got the link in a message.

1. The start screen. She sees the title, the intro and a button. If her browser has not allowed the microphone yet, the button reads Setup microphone permissions and asks for it. Then it reads Start interview. A line underneath says her voice is never stored and links to the privacy policy.
2. The conversation. The page fills with the interview's color, and Buildpad greets her and asks the first question. Its words appear as captions in time with its voice. She answers by talking, and Buildpad follows up on what she says before moving on. She can interrupt at any point: when she starts speaking, Buildpad stops and listens.
3. Screening. If the interview has screening criteria, Buildpad confirms them before anything else. Someone who does not match is thanked, and the interview ends there. They show up in your results as Disqualified.
4. The email. If the interview asks for emails, Buildpad picks a natural moment, gives a reason, and the page shows a field that says "Enter your email below" with a Skip link under it. Skipping does not end the interview.
5. The end. When the objectives are covered, Buildpad thanks her and the page says "You can close this tab now."

The controls

A small set of controls sits at the bottom of the page.

• Mute mic and Unmute mic: the microphone button, with a level meter that shows the mic is picking her up.
• Change mic: the arrow next to it lists the microphones the browser can see, for when the wrong one is selected.
• Type your answer: the keyboard button opens a text field. Enter sends. It is there for a noisy room, or for when voice input cannot connect, which the page says in a notice.
• Restart interview: the arrow in the top right discards the conversation and starts a fresh one as a new respondent.

If she reloads the page or closes the tab by accident, she can come back. The button reads Continue interview and the conversation picks up where it stopped, as long as the time has not run out. After that, a new start begins a new response.

The time bar

The length you set is a soft limit. A bar at the bottom of the page shrinks as the time passes, with the minutes and seconds left next to it. Buildpad knows how much time is left and paces the conversation to cover the objectives before it runs out, so nobody is cut off mid-sentence.

When the time is up and the conversation has gone quiet, the page shows "Time's up" and asks if she wants to keep going, with a button that adds the interview's length again, for example Add 5 more minutes. If she does, the conversation continues where it was. If she leaves instead, the response counts as abandoned and is reviewed with what was said.

When an interview pauses

Interviews run on the project owner's credits. If the owner runs out, the interview closes itself the next time someone tries to start it, and the owner gets an email with the subject "Your interview has been paused". Nothing is lost: existing responses stay, and new people can respond again once the owner adds credits and sets the interview back to Open from the card toolbar.