When a viewer enters a Lumiere video, all the data they generate gets saved. If that same viewer comes back, Lumiere recognizes the device and won't let them submit new answers or change ones they already gave.
That's great for data integrity and accurate results — but not so great when you're trying to test your video setup a few times from the same device before sharing it with your audience.
The good news: Lumiere gives you a few ways to test from the same device without breaking your data.
Testing your setup
There are two easy ways to test your video.
From the Setup page:
Navigate to your video from the main workspace.
On the Setup page, click the purple Preview button in the top-right corner.
A new tab will open with your viewer-facing experience. Any responses you submit will be saved as Test Data.
From the Share page:
Use the preview video experience in the center of the Share page to test from there.
Preview mode
When you hit the Preview button, a new tab opens with your viewer-facing video and &preview appended to the URL. The &preview flag does two things:
Generates a new viewerID for each session
Flags all data collected during that session as Test Data
Test Data is automatically filtered out of your video's Insights Dashboard, but you can pull it back in anytime using the data filter.
The &testdata flag
Adding &testdata to a viewer URL flags any data collected during that session as test data.
Test Data records are excluded from Video Insights by default. To view them, use the Test Data filter on your video's Insights Dashboard.
The &incognito flag
Since Lumiere saves response data per device, you'll need to generate a new ViewerID each time you want a fresh test run. That's what the &incognito flag is for.
Just add &incognito to the end of your activity URL and you'll get a fresh viewer experience every time you open the link from the same device.
Quick tip: adding &preview to your URL does the same thing as adding both &incognito and &testdata.
What to look for when testing your video
A few things worth double-checking before you send your video out:
Spelling and grammar. Make sure all text — question prompts, labels, rows — is spelled correctly and reads cleanly.
Question verbiage. Avoid loaded or leading questions that could skew your results. For example, instead of "What did you like about this scene?" (which assumes the viewer liked it), try "What did you like or dislike about this video?"
Question positioning and timing. Check that your questions appear exactly where and when you want them to. This is especially important for Hotspot questions — bad timing can strip away important context, and bad positioning can hide content viewers need to answer.
Required status. Want viewers to be forced to answer certain questions? Double-check that the Required toggle is set correctly for each one.
AI Conversations. Test your follow-up goal to make sure conversations are heading where you want them to. Don't be shy about iterating — tweak the goal until the AI's asking the right questions.
Custom variables. If you've added custom variables to your URL, check your Insights Dashboard filter to make sure everything's working. Look out for misspelled names, inaccurate values, missing variables, and missing values.
For more on building a great video, check out our Video Setup Best Practices article.