Why this test, not a client test
You could test your waiting room by booking yourself a fake session, opening Rivet on your phone, and tapping through both sides. That works for the mechanics. It misses the thing a colleague test catches: how the experience reads to someone who has never seen Rivet before. Your client will be a stranger to the product. So is your colleague. What confuses them now will confuse a client later — better to find out in a low-stakes test than in week three of someone’s therapy. It also doubles as the most natural peer demo you can do. Therapists talk to other therapists about tools constantly. A friend who joins your waiting room, sees how clean the experience is, and goes “wait, what is this?” has now seen Rivet without you ever giving a sales pitch.The script
Pick a colleague
Another therapist, social worker, counsellor, or a friend you trust
to give you honest feedback. Bonus points if they’re a peer who
might be curious about Rivet themselves.
Text them your URL
From your phone, send them a text that reads roughly:
“Doing a 2-minute Rivet test — can you tap getrivet.ca/your-name when you have a sec and tell me what you see?”Use your actual slug. If you have their cell in your contacts, send from your personal number; the point is to make sure they tap a real link.
Open Rivet on your laptop
Sign in if you’re not already. Click into the Video tab and open
your waiting room. Leave it open in the foreground so you see when
they join.
Watch them appear in your waiting room
Once they tap the link, grant camera + mic permission, and tap
Join, a row for them appears in your waiting room panel. Their
name (if they typed it) and a green Let-in button.
Spend two minutes saying hello
Ask them what they saw on their side. Was the camera prompt clear?
Did the waiting state feel reasonable? Did they have any “wait,
where do I…” moments? This is the feedback that catches the small
confusions before a client hits them.If they’re a therapist, show them the whiteboard and the EMDR
workspace. Open a clinical template. The demo writes itself.
What the test confirms
By the end of two minutes you’ve verified:- Your URL is live and your slug routes to the right waiting room
- A real person on a real phone, on a different network, can reach you
- Camera + microphone permission prompts work on their device
- Your waiting-room panel updates in real time on your side
- Letting someone in works
- The session room launches without surprises
- The end-session flow disconnects both sides cleanly
If something didn’t behave
If they couldn’t reach your URL at all, double-check that you committed your slug on the welcome screen. The slug picker waits for you to tap Save URL — typing it isn’t enough. If their camera or mic permission prompt didn’t appear, ask them to refresh the page. Some browsers (Safari especially) suppress permission prompts until the user clicks a button on the page. If they joined but you didn’t see them in your waiting room panel, refresh your laptop’s Rivet tab. The panel updates over a long-lived connection that occasionally needs a kick after a long idle. If the audio felt echo-y, you were both on speakers. Put on headphones for client sessions; the difference is night and day.Tick the row
Once it works end-to-end, come back to the welcome screen and tap the Test your waiting room with a colleague row to tick it off. The checklist row saves across devices, so you’ll see the green checkmark the next time you open Rivet anywhere.Related articles
Your first session
The full session walkthrough, this time with a real client on the
other side.
Sharing with clients
The wording that works when you’re sharing your URL with a client.