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Create Your First Experiment

There are five ways to start a new project in Testable. Choose whichever suits your needs.

Option 1: Testable Magic

Section titled “Option 1: Testable Magic”

Testable Magic builds your study with AI. Describe what you want to research, and how, in a chat; Magic designs the study for you, starting from a matching library template when one exists, generates and validates the trial file, and hands you a ready project to fine-tune in the editor.

This is the fastest route from an idea to a runnable study. The number of Magic projects you can create per month depends on your plan.

Option 2: The Natural Language form

Section titled “Option 2: The Natural Language form”

The Natural Language form is a short structured wizard: answer a few questions about your design, and Testable generates a starter trial file with the right columns and a few example rows already filled in.

This is the best option if you want a sensible starting point that you shape yourself, without handing the design to AI.

Option 3: A template from the Testable Library

Section titled “Option 3: A template from the Testable Library”

The Testable Library contains hundreds of validated experiment templates: classic paradigms like Stroop, IAT, flanker tasks, and many more. Pick Template from Library when creating a project (or browse testable.org/library), find a template that matches your paradigm, and import it into your account.

Once imported you can modify the trial file, stimuli, and setup to suit your specific study.

Option 4: Create a form

Section titled “Option 4: Create a form”

Create a Form opens the click and drag form builder: compose survey pages by dragging question types into place, without touching the trial file. Best when your project is a questionnaire; see Forms and Surveys for what forms can do.

Option 5: Start from scratch

Section titled “Option 5: Start from scratch”

Start from scratch creates an empty project. You add the trial file and stimuli yourself; if you already have a trial file (from a previous project or from a collaborator), upload it as a CSV. Best when you know exactly what you are building, with the Feature Manual at hand.

Running your project for the first time

Section titled “Running your project for the first time”

Once your project exists:

  1. Open the editor. The trial file editor is where you build your experiment row by row.
  2. Use the previewer. Click the eye icon next to any trial to see it in the built-in preview panel. This lets you fine-tune timings, stimulus sizes, and layout without ever publishing a change.
  3. Publish your changes. Changes in the editor are not visible to participants until you click Publish. This protects live data collection from accidental edits.
  4. Set the project to Active. In the project list, click the dot next to your project to toggle it online/offline.
  5. Share the link. Copy the project URL and share it with participants.

Uploading stimuli

Section titled “Uploading stimuli”

If your experiment uses image, audio, or video stimuli, upload them in the Design/Stimuli tab of your project. In the trial file you then reference them in two parts: put the file format in the stimFormat column (e.g. .png) and the filenames, without their extension, in the stim columns (e.g. cat for the uploaded cat.png).

You can upload up to 200 files at a time. For larger collections, upload a single zip file.

Fine-tuning

Section titled “Fine-tuning”

Use the trial file columns to adjust every aspect of your experiment:

  • Stimulus size, position, and format
  • Timing parameters (ITI, presentation time, response window)
  • Response types (keyboard, mouse, buttons, sliders, etc.)
  • Feedback messages
  • Randomisation

All of these are covered in the Feature Manual.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”