researching ux analytics

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Researching UX: Analytics: Understanding Is the Heart of Great UX (Aspects of Ux) 1st Edition

Good UX is based on evidence. Qualitative evidence, such as user testing and field research, can only get you so far. To get the full picture of how users are engaging with your website or app, you'll need to use quantitative evidence in the form of analytics.

This book will show you, step by step, how you can use website and app analytics data to inform design choices and definitively improve user experience. Offering practical guidelines, with plenty of detailed examples, this book covers:

• why you need to gather analytics data for your UX projects
• getting set up with analytics tools
• analyzing data
• how to find problems in your analytics
• using analytics to aid user research, measure and report on outcomes

By the end of this book, you'll have a strong understanding of the important role analytics plays in the UX process. It will inspire you to take an "analytics first" approach to your UX projects.

• ISBN-10 9780994347077
• ISBN-13 978-0994347077
• Edition 1st
• Publisher SitePoint
• Publication date January 20, 2017
• Language English
• Dimensions 7 x 0.38 x 9.19 inches
• Print length 176 pages
• See all details

From the Publisher

Who Should Read This Book

This book is for UX professionals, designers, product managers, and anyone interested in using an analytics tool to improve UX. No prior experience with Google Analytics or other analytics tools is assumed.

Editorial Reviews

About the author.

Luke Hay is a UK-based UX Consultant who's been working with websites since the 1990s. He prides himself on taking a user-centric, analytical approach to design, development and optimization of websites and apps. Luke currently splits his time between working as the Senior Conversion Strategist at integrated digital agency Fresh Egg, and as a freelance UX and analytics consultant and trainer. Always involved in his local digital community, Luke has helped organize and curate events for UX Brighton, and is one of the organizers of UX Camp Brighton.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0994347073
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ SitePoint; 1st edition (January 20, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780994347077
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0994347077
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.5 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.38 x 9.19 inches
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12 Best UX Analytics Tools for User Research [2024]

15 min read

Giving customers what they want is tricky without the right tool in your arsenal. Luckily, UX analytics tools are available and accessible for understanding user behavior and crafting the optimum user experience.

Do you want to revolutionize your business with UX analytics? Here are 12 of the best user experience analytics tools for user research in 2024!

1. Userpilot

• Rating: 4.6 on G2.

Userpilot is a digital adoption and growth platform for digital products good for user onboarding, feature adoption, and churn reduction for web apps.

Its UX tools excel at gathering insights from quantitative and qualitative data. Userpilot also possesses powerful tools in customer engagement, conversion, and customer retention.

Key features

Here’s a brief overview of Userpilot’s UX analytics tools:

• User segmentation : The segmentation feature in Userpilot lets you segment users based on attributes to define and predict user behavior. Userpilot keeps track of such attributes as name, ID, plan, web sessions, device type, and sign-up date. It also tracks complex attributes like company data, tagged features, custom events, in-app experiences, and user feedback.

• Funnel analysis : Userpilot’s funnel analysis tool keeps track of user actions throughout every phase of the funnel. You can analyze each step of the user journey to pinpoint choke points and track user behavior . Funnel analytics also help you monitor the performance of onboarding checklists or resource center modules.

• Event tracking : Userpilot allows teams to tag UI interactions (hovers, clicks, or form infills) and track them as events using the no-code event tracking tool . You can also group events to make a custom event that reflects a behavior you want to define (for example, feature usage) .The tool lets you check the tag data from the individual user or account level.
• Analytics dashboards : Teams can track vital metrics and generate meaningful user insights with Userpilot’s pre-built dashboards. Keep track of key product metrics like product usage, user activation, feature engagement, and more. These dashboards are automatically available without any setup required.
• Scalable user feedback : Get actionable user feedback using Userpilot’s feedback tools to your advantage. You can analyze user sentiment at scale using contextual in-app surveys with user feedback widgets, gather useful insights from user interactions via color-coded heatmaps , and much more.

• Integrations : Userpilot has various third-party app integrations, allowing for a larger dataset for analysis, more nuanced data for generating insights, and streamlined workflows for increased efficiency. Enjoy integrations with apps like Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, and more.

Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s pricing plans :

• Starter : The Starter plan comes at $249/month with an annual and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement , NPS feedback, and customization. The platform also lets you create a free account to test it without commitment.
• Growth : The Growth plan starts at $749/month and includes features like resource centers , advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization , EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise : The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations , priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

Try Userpilot and Take Your User Experience to the Next Level

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required

2. Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

• Rating: 4.5 on G2.

Google Analytics is a freemium web analytics tool under the Google suite. It’s a great tool for gathering customer insights into user behavior, boasting tools bolstered by Google’s own machine-learning models. You can collect valuable insights into how users interact, predict future user interactions , and go granular into user activity that leads to data-informed decisions.

Key features:

Here’s a summary of Google Analytics’s UX analytics tools:

• Predictive insights : Using Google’s advanced machine learning models, Google Analytics can scrutinize behavioral data to forecast future behavior, like predicting if users drop or close a deal. Additionally, you can use the data to segment users according to their predicted behavior and send relevant messages their way at the appropriate times.
• Funnel exploration : The funnel exploration tool under Google Analytics’s exploration suite is an amazing visualizer for mapping out the effectiveness of a conversion funnel. Identify friction points that hamper conversions and optimize for a smoother user flow through the funnel.
• Engagement reports : With engagement reports, you can understand what drives engagement inside your platform. You can find reports that track all relevant events — from user actions to system errors, identify contributors to successful conversions, and monitor pages and screens that grab the most engagement.

Google operates a freemium pricing model. Most of its features are available for free, with premium features locked behind Google 360 for enterprises.

3. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a product analytics tool for web and mobile apps that is perfect for product managers looking for robust report visualization. The visualization tools are superb in representing data intuitively.

You can attach these reports to dashboards that are neatly organized and data-rich. Each report can also be broken down further into segments that show nuances and idiosyncrasies from user behavior.

Here’s a rundown of Mixpanel’s UX analytics tools:

• Dashboards : Mixpanel’s dashboards are highly customizable, delivering effective data at a glance. You can create unlimited dashboards according to your preferences: product usage, marketing stats, etc. You can also see all of your dashboards in a single view and jump between different dashboards whenever needed.
• Cohorts : Cohorts are an effective way of grouping your users into helpful segments that you can investigate further with Mixpanel’s behavioral analytics tools. Additionally, you can use cohorts to create personalized content per cohort.
• Trends report : Mixpanel has a multitude of reports you can use to visualize and communicate your data. Among them, the trends report allows you to spot trends and patterns of customer experiences that you can leverage or mitigate for a cleaner UX.

Mixpanel offers its Growth plan at $28/month for 10K events. The price scales up as the number of events also increases. Mixpanel also offers a free plan and a premium plan for enterprises.

UXCam is a user behavior analytics tool built especially for mobile applications. UXCam possesses analytics tools both for product and customer experience. Under customer experience , you find fantastic tools like heat maps, session recordings, user paths, and issue analytics.

Here’s a brief overview of UXCam’s UX analytics tools:

• Heatmaps : UXCam’s heatmaps show where and how user interactions unfold over your mobile interfaces. Discover hotspots that show what users look for or where they look at first, and get more granular insights by seeing user actions in that hotspot. Create an interface design from the data to take advantage of your audience’s unique user behavior.
• Session recordings : The session recordings tool will record user sessions to demonstrate user experience . See friction points as users experience them, pinpoint usability issues, and foster a deeper understanding of user experience that leads to optimization.
• Journey analysis : Journey analysis puts you in the shoes of your users by showing a top-down view of what they go through when they interact with your platform. Identify journeys that break the established pattern, discover happy paths to be replicated, and point out bottlenecks that lead to churn.

UXCam operates a quote-based model for both of its pricing plans. The Growth plan is limited to 3,000+ monthly sessions, while the Enterprise plan will depend on the quote. UXCam also offers a free plan for a maximum of 3,000 monthly sessions and a 14-day free trial.

• Rating: 4.3 on G2.

Hotjar is a popular UX analytics tool best known as a website heatmaps and behavioral analytics platform. Hotjar is great for teams looking for a qualitative analytics tool.

The heatmaps and scrollmaps feature present a bird’s-eye-view of user engagement with your product, and its session replay tool zooms in directly into user experience through user recordings.

Here’s a summary of Hotjar’s UX research tools:

• Heatmaps and scroll maps : Hotjar’s heatmaps tool indicates hotspots of user interaction. Those hotspots reveal what users interact with most, good or bad. The scroll maps feature shows how far users scroll and where they stay the most.
• Live video user interviews : Hotjar offers live user interviews to analyze UX more directly. Conduct usability tests on your digital product and observe how users navigate them. Gain vital data from user testing, discover if users think the product has a steep learning curve, etc.
• Real-time user feedback : Get answers directly from the source with Hotjar’s user feedback tool. A feedback button remains constantly overlayed on your webpage that’s readily accessible. Additionally, their feedback ties in directly to Hotjar’s session replay tool, where you can view their session to assess what led to their bad review.

Hotjar’s Observe suite offers three paid plans (starting at Plus’ $32/month billed annually, up to Scale’s $171/month billed annually), a free plan for up to 35 sessions daily, and a 15-day free trial.

6. Contentsquare

• Rating: 4.7 on G2.

Contentsquare is a digital experience platform for customer retention, conversion, and satisfaction. Contentsquare has tools for digital experience analytics, monitoring, and feedback. It lets you use heatmaps, user journey analytics, frustration scoring, feedback collection , and more. You will get access to a retention analysis tool that can observe user paths and replicate them in the future.

Here’s a rundown of Contentsquare’s UX research platform:

• Retention analysis : With retention analysis, Contentsquare can analyze retention rates per segment. Discover how many users return, observe their paths, and replicate paths to other user journeys.
• Zone-based heatmaps : The zone-based heatmaps tool reveals how users interact with all of the elements on your website. For example, after A/B testing , you can analyze specific zones to see which variant worked best and by how much.
• Frustration scoring : Contentsquare’s frustration scoring surfaces bad experiences that make the most impact, reducing the time your team consumes combing through every user session with bad reviews. You can let AI uncover the issues for you, allowing your team to focus on addressing areas that cause the biggest frustrations.

Contentsquare uses a custom pricing model for its digital product. You can book a free demo by contacting their sales team.

7. Optimizely

• Rating: 4.2 in G2.

Optimizely is a digital experience platform for improving customer experiences throughout the entire marketing lifecycle. The A/B testing feature is one of its impressive UX tools.

Using sequential testing, Optimizely can uncover statistically significant results faster, allowing for quicker data-driven decisions. Optimizely also features personalization tools that customize content that best engages with specific segments.

Here’s a brief overview of Optimizely’s user experience analytics tools:

• A/B testing : Collaborate with your team to craft the best experiment, and then use Optimizely’s stats accelerator to gather statistically sound results. Then, optimize the distribution of the successful variants to the relevant segments.
• Audience builder : Create cohorts from your audience that share the same attributes and create tailor-fit experiments for their specific cohorts. Create cohorts using pre-built templates or make your own by combining disparate attributes.
• MAB + Stats accelerator : Optimizely lets you maximize yield or minimize time when running your experiments with its multi-armed bandit (MAB) and stats accelerator. Get statistically significant results within a few days instead of weeks, allowing you to make smarter decisions faster.

Optimizely employs a quote-based pricing model for all of its modules. You can request a quote by contacting their sales team.

8. Omniconvert

Omniconvert is a UX research and CRO platform for customer conversion and retention. It’s a great tool for conducting surveys, with a list of survey templates you can utilize or customize to gather relevant data for your team. You also get access to a segmentation tool to analyze UX from a user level.

Here’s a summary of Omniconvert’s user experience research tools:

• RFM segmentation : Segment your customers using RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value) analysis to pinpoint your most valuable customer base. You can focus on this segment to make the most out of your marketing investment.
• Customer survey platform : Omniconvert’s customer survey platform provides solutions for getting direct feedback from your customers. Choose from a set of survey templates , or create your own. Schedule when you send the survey, target the right audience and place it where it’s noticeable but not distracting.
• Web personalization : Personalize user experiences in real-time. Omniconvert’s personalization tools collect data and use it to craft personalized experiences, taking into account everything from name and device type to website behavior.

Omniconvert offers its Explore suite and its Reveal suite separately.

• The Explore suite, housing its CRO platform, offers two pricing plans: Platform, priced at $273/month billed annually, and Enterprise, available on request.
• The Reveal suite, housing its customer analytics platform, offers two pricing plans: Scale, priced at $9,999/year, and Enterprise, available on request. Omniconvert provides a free plan for its Reveal suite.

You can get a 30-day free trial for either of its suites.

9. Mouseflow

Mouseflow is a digital experience analytics tool for optimizing web UX. Mouseflow’s tools are specialized for analyzing and optimizing UX for websites. You get access to qualitative tools like session recordings and heatmaps, as well as more quantitative tools like conversion funnels and form analytics. You can also gather direct feedback via the user feedback tool.

Its best tool, friction score, delves into friction points to help optimize the product and prioritize users that have a high possibility of churning.

Here’s a rundown of Mouseflow’s UX analytics tools:

• Friction score : Mouseflow’s friction score provides more nuance than other tools that only identify friction points. Friction score quantifies frustration by monitoring actions correlating to friction (rage clicks, error clicks, rage hovers, etc.) and calculating an average score. Prioritize users with high friction scores and transform churn moments into revenue-driving opportunities.
• Conversion funnel optimization : Maximize user experiences and conversion opportunities with the conversion funnel optimization tool. Create a funnel analysis, and analyze the UX of dropped users by watching their session recordings. Identify happy paths, and discover campaigns that hinder conversions.
• User feedback : The feedback tool sends feedback to users in the heat of the moment. Ask for feedback as soon as they trigger abnormal actions like rage clicks or error clicks, ensuring your feedback is fresh and accurate.

Mouseflow offers four paid plans (beginning with Starter’s $31/month billed annually, up to Pro’s $399/month billed annually). Mouseflow also offers a separate plan for Enterprises, a free plan, and a 14-day free trial for all plans.

10. Smartlook

Smartlook is a product analytics and visual user insight tool under Cisco, bringing qualitative and quantitative data analytics into a single, powerful platform. It’s a great tool for uncovering customer insights into user experience across platforms. It features heat maps and session recordings in its toolbox. It also features crash reports that replay user sessions that crashed or glitched out.

Here’s a brief overview of Smarlook’s user experience insights tools:

• Retroactive funnels : Unlike typical funnel analysis that waits for current data, the retroactive funnel tool takes existing data to create its funnel analysis. Use data from as recent as yesterday to as long as the past 12 months, and discover key insights behind user drop-offs.
• Cross-platform analytics : Smartlook’s analytics tools work across web and mobile apps, consolidating user experiences of all platforms into a singular place to analyze and optimize. Find heatmaps and session replays, create funnels, or visualize behavior flows for any or all platforms.
• Crash reports : The crash reports tool combines crash analytics with session recordings to make resolving crashes easier. Connect crashes to user sessions that show the user interactions preceding it. Look at your analytics to find where crashes happen most often, and address accordingly.

Smartlook offers its paid plan, Pro, for $55/month. There’s also an enterprise plan available on request, a free plan with basic tools, and a 30-day free trial for the Pro plan.

nto buyers.

Plerdy is a conversion rate optimization platform built to leverage user experience with search engine optimization. It combines user experience with search engine optimization, attracting visitors and seamlessly converting them into buyers.

Here’s a summary of Plerdy’s user experience analytics tools:

• A/B testing : Plerdy’s A/B testing tool is simple but powerful. Create an experiment, specify your URLs, create the variants, and set the marks for success — Plerdy will be in charge of the rest. Users would be delighted to know that Plerdy’s A/B test tool is packaged free for any plan.
• Website feedback : Gather qualitative feedback directly from users with just a few clicks. Set up different surveys that measure different attributes like effort (CES), loyalty (NPS), satisfaction (CSAT), etc. Deploy surveys with Plerdy’s no-code builder, and have Plerdy collect and analyze the data in a flash.
• Pop-up software : Create pop-ups that are eye-catching and attention-grabbing without the annoying emotions tied into them. The no-code builder makes it accessible even for non-technical users and can be used for either collecting crucial feedback or showcasing alternatives or CTAs.

Plerdy offers three pricing plans (starting at Startup’s $21/month billed annually, up to Thrive’s $70/month billed annually), a free plan, and a 14-day free trial for any of Plerdy’s paid plans.

12. Adobe Analytics

• Rating: 4.1 on G2.

Adobe Analytics is a business intelligence platform within the Adobe Creative Suite focused on web analytics for optimizing the customer experience. You can segment your audience, gather data from multiple sources online and off, predict actions, identify anomalous behavior, and share all this data seamlessly to the Adobe Experience Cloud.

Here’s a rundown of Adobe Analytcs’s user experience solutions:

• Multichannel data collection : Adobe Analytics can capture data from multiple channels to create a statistically robust report on your users’ behavior. Gather data from the web, mobile apps — even offline data — or other digital marketing systems like email.
• Advanced segmentation : Adobe Analytics’ advanced segmentation allows you to create and analyze unlimited segments with unlimited, statistically significant differences. Use advanced AI to automate every analysis and uncover deep insights that can best address the segment’s needs.
• Flow analysis : View customer journeys and see where they come from and where they go once they leave your app or website. Identify exit screens and paths that lead to conversions, and design around it to keep your customer engaged and satisfied.

All of Adobe Analytics’ pricing plans employ a custom pricing model.

How to choose the best UX Analytics tool?

To determine the right UX analytics tool for your business, make sure they fulfill these criteria:

• Functionalities : Look for qualitative features like heatmap visualizations, session replays to observe user experiences, user feedback collection, one-on-one interviews for usability testing, etc., as well as quantitative analytics tools that do funnel, path, or cohort analysis, segmentation, experimentation, event tracking, predictive analytics, etc.
• Ease of use : Tools with steep learning curves hinder its efficacy. Look for tools that are easy to use, intuitive to navigate, require little onboarding, possess an expansive knowledge base, and employ a dedicated support team to resolve issues.
• Cost-effectiveness : Tools should provide the best functionalities in proportion to the costs they bring. Smaller companies might require cheaper alternatives than Enterprises, but both require tools that deliver the most bang for their buck.
• Integrations : Companies often already possess several SaaS tools doing different things. Look for UX analytics tools that integrate with your entire tech stack.

UX analytics tools FAQs

What are ux analytics tools.

UX analytics tools collect and analyze user behavior data to understand the customer experience.

There are various use cases for UX analytics tools: Product managers use UX analytics tools to monitor product usage; UX designers use it to optimize user experiences; and digital marketers use it to reach specific people at relevant times.

Why do you need a UX analytics tool?

Businesses that employ UX analytics tools gain a competitive advantage in customer conversion , retention, satisfaction, and loyalty .

UX analytics tools help you engage and convert customers by making processes more convenient and customer effort low.

The same tools boost retention and loyalty by pushing relevant messages at reasonable times, sending reminders and notifications, encouraging renewals and upgrades, and delivering support.

These tools also help increase satisfaction by allowing customers to express their frustrations, participate in improvements, and uncover friction points and high-risk exit pages that teams can troubleshoot and optimize to streamline the customer journey.

From improving experiences to optimizing flows, UX analytics provide the gateway to positive customer experiences.

Are you ready to revolutionize your digital product’s user experience? Sign up for a free Userpilot demo today and reap the rewards of UX analytics!

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36 Best UX Research Tools in 2024: Pricing, Pros, Cons, Reviews

Navigating the vast sea of UX research tools can be daunting. As 2024 unfolds, the array of tools available to UX professionals is more diverse and sophisticated than ever. From deep analytics to intuitive testing environments, these tools are essential for delving into user behavior and enhancing user experiences. This guide walks you through the 36 best UX research tools and platforms, each a key to unlocking valuable user insights.

36 Best UX Research Tools in 2024

1. userbrain – the best ux research tool in 2024 .

Userbrain stands out from the crowd because of its streamlined approach to user testing. With a focus on simplicity, and rapid results, it’s the go-to UX research tool for teams that need quick insights without any hassle. Userbrain is all about discovering important user insights with minimal fuss, and that’s why Userbrain tops our list of the best UX research tools.

Userbrain Pricing

• Pay-as-you-go at $39 per test.
• Subscription plans start from $79/month for the Starter plan.
• Custom Enterprise options available upon request.

Userbrain Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Affordable and flexible pricing options .
• Large pool of over 125,000 quality-assured testers.
• AI Insights for quick and easy user test analysis.
• Real-time analysis with video feedback.
• Optimized for prototype, mobile app , and website testing.
• Unlimited team members on all plans.
• No live chat support (coming soon).

Userbrain Reviews

Users commend Userbrain for its straightforward user testing process and quick results. The platform’s ease of use and diverse tester pool are frequently highlighted, with many noting the high quality of actionable insights provided. – via G2

Considering Userbrain for user testing?

Well, you’re in luck. You can start testing in minutes and get results in hours, with no credit card required, thanks to Userbrain’s generous free trial. Start testing! ?

2. UX Tweak

UX Tweak delves deep into usability testing, offering an impressive suite of tools for understanding user interactions. With its robust analytics capabilities, UX Tweak is a research tool to consider for those who want to dissect every aspect of user behavior.

UX Tweak Pricing

• Free plan available with limited features.
• Paid plans start from $99/month.
• Custom pricing for enterprise solutions.

UX Tweak Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• A comprehensive suite of user testing tools.
• Detailed website analytics and reporting.
• Supports prototype testing.
• It can be overwhelming for beginners due to extensive features.

UX Tweak Reviews

UX Tweak is appreciated for its detailed analytics and comprehensive testing tools. Users find it valuable for in-depth user behavior analysis, despite a bit of a learning curve due to its extensive features. – via Capterra

Considering UX Tweak alternatives for usability testing?

Did you try UX Tweak, and it wasn’t your cup of tea? We’ve compiled a list of the best UX Tweak alternatives for user testing – have a browse! ?

Hotjar is a quantitative-focused UX research tool, that provides a holistic view of user interactions. It’s a valuable platform for those who seek a comprehensive understanding of the numbers behind how users interact with their websites and apps. Therefore, it’s highly recommended to combine quantitative UX research from Hotjar, with qualitative user insights from Userbrain.

Hotjar Pricing

• Basic plan is free with limited access.
• Plus plan starts at $39/month.
• Business and Scale plans with advanced features and custom pricing.

Hotjar Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Visual heatmaps for user interaction insights.
• User feedback tools like surveys and session recordings.
• Easy to set up and use.
• Limited in-depth analytics compared to more advanced platforms.

Hotjar Reviews

Hotjar earns praise for its blend of analytics and feedback tools, particularly its heatmaps. Users like its intuitive interface, though some wish for deeper analytics. – via TrustRadius

Considering Hotjar alternatives for product testing?

If you’re looking for UX research tools similar to Hotjar, read through our guide on the  best Hotjar alternatives for product testing. ?

Maze is a champion of efficiency in prototype and wireframe testing. It stands out for its ability to deliver quick, actionable insights, particularly useful for prototype testing and short-and-snappy user surveys.

Maze Pricing

• Free trial available.
• Paid plans start from $25/month.
• Custom pricing for larger teams and enterprises.

Maze Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Rapid testing capabilities for quick insights.
• User-friendly interface for surveys and prototype testing.
• Integrates with design tools like Figma and Sketch.
• Limited qualitative data compared to other platforms.

Maze Reviews

Maze is favored for quick testing and actionable insights, with users appreciating its integration with design tools and user-friendly interface. – via GetApp

5. Lookback

Lookback offers a real-time user testing experience, which is great for gathering rich, qualitative insights. Its interactive capabilities make it a favorite for teams seeking a deeper, more conversational approach to understanding user behavior.

Lookback Pricing

• Free trial available for 14 days.
• Paid plans start at $99/month.
• Custom enterprise solutions available.

Lookback Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Real-time, interactive user testing capabilities.
• Live session recording and playback.
• Supports remote and in-person testing.
• Requires stable internet connection for live sessions.

Lookback Reviews

Lookback receives positive feedback for its real-time user testing and depth of qualitative insights. While connectivity issues are noted, its live session capabilities are highly valued. – via Software Advice

Considering Lookback alternatives for user testing?

While there are many fans of Lookback, it’s not for everyone. That’s why we’ve written an article outlining the best Lookback alternatives for user testing. Flick through it and find the best option for your user testing needs. ?

Loop11 is a robust web-based platform for usability testing, known for its generous feature set. As such, it’s mainly suited for broad user analysis, offering a depth of data that is sufficient to inform UX strategies.

Loop11 Pricing

• Rapid Insights plan at $179/month (billed annually).
• Pro plan at $358/month (billed annually).
• Enterprise plan with custom pricing.

Loop11 Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Offers both moderated and unmoderated testing.
• Detailed analytics with heatmaps and clickstreams.
• Supports large-scale testing projects.
• Interface may be less intuitive for new users.

Loop11 Reviews

Loop11 is recognized for its effective usability testing features, with users highlighting its detailed analytics and ease of use. Some users mention a desire for a more modern interface, but overall, it’s valued for its comprehensive testing capabilities. – via G2

Considering Loop11 as a UX Designer?

Not so fast. If you’re a UX Designer looking for a quality UX research tool, Loop11 is a decent place to start. However, there might be better UX research tools on the market for your needs. Therefore, we strongly advise you check out our guide to the  best Loop11 alternatives  before making a commitment either way. ?

7. UserTesting / UserZoom

The merger of UserTesting and UserZoom has created a powerhouse in the UX research world – some might even say it is too powerful! UserTesting is a treasure trove of human insights, with an extensive range of testing options suitable for large-scale, diverse research needs. Undoubtedly, this platform is one of the best UX research tools on the market today for those with the budget to afford it.

UserTesting Pricing

• Custom pricing based on specific needs.
• Contact sales for a tailored quote.
• No standard pricing information available on the website.

UserTesting Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Extensive range of testing options.
• Large global tester community.
• Advanced analytics and reporting features.
• Pricing lacks transparency and is not as affordable as other UX research tools.

UserTesting Reviews

UserTesting is lauded for its extensive tester pool and depth of insights. Users appreciate the platform’s robust testing options, though some note the high cost as a consideration. – via TrustRadius

Looking for more affordable UserTesting alternatives?

Don’t get us wrong: UserTesting is a fantastic tool for UX research. However, that performance comes at a price – a price which might be too ambitious for your UX budget. If you’re looking for UX research tools that pack a similar punch to UserTesting at a fraction of the cost, read through our  best UserTesting alternatives  list. ?

8. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg excels in visualizing user interactions through heatmap analytics. Similar to Hotjar, Crazy Egg will interest UX researchers who prefer a data-driven approach to understanding user behavior, offering clear, actionable insights for website optimization.

Crazy Egg Pricing

• Basic plan starts at $24/month.
• Plus plan at $49/month.
• Pro and Custom plans with advanced features.

Crazy Egg Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Visual heatmaps for website analysis.
• Easy setup and user-friendly interface.
• A/B testing and conversion optimization tools.
• Limited capabilities for in-depth UX research.

Crazy Egg Reviews

Crazy Egg receives positive feedback for its heatmap analytics and user-friendly interface. Users find it helpful for website optimization, though some wish for more advanced features. – via Capterra

Need an alternative to Crazy Egg for UX research?

Crazy Egg is a great weapon to have in your arsenal for quantitative research. However, there are better UX research tools on the market for qualitative research. If you’re looking for a one-stop solution that can balance quantitative and qualitative user research, dive into our article on the best Crazy Egg alternatives for UX research. ?

9. Userfeel

Userfeel ‘s main strength lies in its multilingual user capabilities, making it a good choice for global research projects. Its ability to cater to a diverse user base makes it a valuable UX research tool for teams looking to understand international audiences.

Userfeel Pricing

• Pay-as-you-go option at $30 per test.
• Subscription plans start from $89/month.
• Custom enterprise solutions are available.

Userfeel Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Multilingual testing capabilities.
• Wide range of demographic filters for testers.
• Supports both moderated and unmoderated tests.
• Limited advanced analytics features.

Userfeel Reviews

Userfeel is praised for its multilingual testing capabilities and ease of use. Reviewers appreciate the platform’s flexibility and range of testing options, making it a versatile choice for UX research. – via GetApp

10. Testbirds

Rounding off our top 10 UX research tools is Testbirds . Testbirds specializes in crowdtesting, providing real user feedback across various devices and platforms. This platform best suits UX researchers who want to test their products in the German market, ensuring good coverage and diverse user feedback.

Testbirds Pricing

• Custom pricing based on project requirements.
• Contact for a tailored quote.

Testbirds Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Extensive crowdtesting network for diverse feedback.
• Covers a wide range of devices and platforms.
• Specializes in real-world testing scenarios.
• Pricing and plan details are not transparent.

Testbirds Reviews

Testbirds is commended for its crowdtesting approach, offering diverse and real-world feedback. Users value the platform for its thorough testing across various devices and scenarios. – via G2

Dscout shines in mobile diary studies and contextual user insights, making it a pretty good tool for UX research. Its focus on capturing user experiences over time offers a different perspective on user behavior and preferences.

Dscout Pricing

• Custom pricing based on research needs.

Dscout Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Specializes in mobile diary studies and contextual insights.
• Longitudinal research capabilities.
• User-friendly platform for qualitative research.
• Pricing lacks transparency and can be higher than competitors.

Dscout Reviews

Dscout is well-regarded for its mobile diary studies and in-depth user insights. Users appreciate its user-friendly nature and the depth of data it provides, though some desire more transparent pricing. – via Product Hunt

12. Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub)

Lyssna , previously known as UsabilityHub , offers a standard suite of tools for quick and effective user testing. Its straightforward approach will be appreciated by those who need fast insights without the complexity of more elaborate setups.

Lyssna Pricing

• Free plan available with basic features.
• Paid plans start from $79/month.

Lyssna Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Suite of tools for quick usability testing.
• Supports first-click and five-second tests.
• User-friendly interface for surveys and preference tests.
• Limited session recording and advanced analytics.

Lyssna Reviews

Lyssna  is praised for its quick usability testing tools and user-friendly interface, making it a popular choice for fast insights. – via TrustRadius

UXCam offers an insightful peek into mobile app user behavior, making it a reasonable choice for mobile app analytics. Its ability to capture detailed user interactions within apps makes it a useful tool for those focused on optimizing mobile user experiences.

UXCam Pricing

Uxcam pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• In-depth app analytics for detailed user behavior insights.
• Session replay feature to understand user interactions.
• Heatmaps for visualizing user engagement on mobile apps.
• Pricing lacks transparency and can vary based on requirements.

UXCam Reviews

UXCam is favored for its detailed app analytics and user interaction insights. Users value its session replay and heatmap features for mobile app analysis. – via G2

14. PlaybookUX

PlaybookUX is a versatile platform that delivers user interviews, usability testing, and concept testing. Its comprehensive approach makes it a worthy contender for teams with varying UX research needs.

PlaybookUX Pricing

• Pay-as-you-go option starting at $49 per participant.
• Subscription plans available with custom pricing.
• Contact sales for more detailed pricing information.

PlaybookUX Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Versatile platform supporting user interviews, usability testing, and concept testing.
• Intuitive interface for easy test setup and analysis.
• Comprehensive testing capabilities for diverse insights.
• Pay-as-you-go option can be expensive for larger studies.

PlaybookUX Reviews

PlaybookUX receives positive feedback for its comprehensive user testing and research capabilities, with users highlighting its versatility and ease of use. – via Software Advice

15. RapidUsertests

Targeting the German-speaking market, RapidUsertests thorough usability testing tailored to the DACH region. It’s suitable for UX researchers looking to understand and engage with German-speaking audiences.

RapidUsertests Pricing

Rapidusertests pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Specialized in the German-speaking market, offering localized insights.
• Wide range of usability testing services.
• Ideal for businesses targeting the DACH region.
• Limited appeal for non-German-speaking audiences.

RapidUsertests Reviews

RapidUsertests is appreciated in the German market for its localized usability testing and user feedback, offering valuable insights for the DACH region. – via OMR Reviews

16. Userlytics

Userlytics combines qualitative and quantitative research tools, offering a well-rounded suite for UX research. Its ability to provide a holistic view of user experiences makes it a valuable asset for comprehensive UX research.

Userlytics Pricing

• Pay-as-you-go plans starting at $49 per participant.
• Subscription plans ranging from $399/month to $999/month.
• Custom plans for specific projects and unconventional profiles.

Userlytics Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Suite of user research tools including card sorting and tree testing.
• Automated and multilingual transcriptions available.
• Quantitative metrics like time on task, SUS, NPS, and SUPR-Q.
• The user interface is considered outdated and less intuitive.

Userlytics Reviews

Userlytics is commended for its suite of user research tools and automated transcriptions, offering a well-rounded approach to UX testing. – via G2

17. Optimizely

Optimizely is renowned for its experimentation platform, enabling A/B testing and personalization at scale. It’s a tool that empowers teams to make data-driven design decisions, optimizing user experiences based on robust testing.

Optimizely Pricing

Optimizely pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Robust A/B testing and personalization features.
• Scalable for large enterprises and complex experiments.
• Data-driven approach for UX optimization.
• Pricing can be expensive for smaller teams.

Optimizely Reviews

Optimizely is recognized for its powerful A/B testing and personalization features, with users valuing its data-driven approach to UX optimization. – via Gartner

18. Useberry

Useberry offers a leftfield approach to prototype analysis and user testing. Its focus on interactive prototypes makes it an interesting option for UX designers looking to test and refine their designs in the early stages of development.

Useberry Pricing

• Free plan with basic features.
• Growth plan at $67/month (billed yearly).

Useberry Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Focus on interactive prototype testing.
• User-friendly platform for quick insights.
• Affordable pricing for small to medium-sized teams.
• Limited features in the free plan.

Useberry Reviews

Useberry earns praise for its focus on interactive prototype testing, with users appreciating its user-friendly platform for quick insights. – via Product Hunt

19. Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop is a leader in website optimization tools, including card sorting and tree testing. Its quantitative focus makes it an essential tool for designing intuitive and user-friendly navigation structures.

Optimal Workshop Pricing

Optimal workshop pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Specializes in information architecture tools like card sorting and tree testing.
• User-friendly platform for designing intuitive navigation structures.
• Suitable for both small-scale and large-scale research projects.
• Limited features in the free plan compared to paid subscriptions.

Optimal Workshop Reviews

Optimal Workshop is highly rated for its specialized information architecture tools, particularly its card sorting and tree testing features. – via Capterra

20. Ballpark

Ballpark is known for its user-friendly approach to user testing, making research fast, easy, and inclusive. It’s a solid choice for teams that value simplicity and efficiency in their UX research platforms.

Ballpark Pricing

• Starter plan at $100/month (billed annually).
• Business plan at $184/month (billed annually).

Ballpark Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• User-friendly platform for small-scale research.
• Includes recruitment minutes and unlimited video recording.
• Figma prototype testing and conditional logic features.
• Limited active projects in the Starter plan.

Ballpark Reviews

Ballpark is favored for its user-friendly approach to user testing, making it an excellent choice for teams that value simplicity and efficiency. – via G2

21. Userpeek

Userpeek offers various user testing services, including remote usability testing and moderated user interviews . Its flexibility makes it a versatile choice for UX teams with diverse research needs.

Userpeek Pricing

• No standard pricing information is available on the website.

Userpeek Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Wide range of user testing services.
• Flexible platform for diverse research needs.
• Supports usability testing and user interviews.

Userpeek Reviews

Userpeek is noted for its range of user testing services and flexibility, with users appreciating its comprehensive approach to UX research. – via G2

22. User Interviews

User Interviews excels in participant recruitment, offering a comprehensive platform for managing UX research participants. It’s best suited for large UX research teams looking to streamline the recruitment process and focus on running many studies simultaneously across various platforms.

User Interviews Pricing

User interviews pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Comprehensive tester recruitment platform.
• Streamlines UX research logistics.
• Efficient management of research testers.

User Interviews Reviews

User Interviews receives high marks for its efficient participant recruitment and management, making it a go-to for streamlined UX research logistics. – via Capterra

23. Wondering

Wondering provides AI-powered user insights, simplifying the process of conducting and analyzing user research. Its AI-driven approach is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it might work for UX research teams looking to try an alternative approach.

Wondering Pricing

Wondering pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• AI-powered user insights for efficient research.
• Simplifies conducting and analyzing user research.
• Innovative approach with AI-driven feedback.

Wondering Reviews

Wondering is praised for its AI-powered user insights, offering an innovative approach to user research and feedback analysis. – via SaaSworthy

24. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics focuses on event analytics, offering deep insights into user behavior for web and mobile platforms. Its detailed analytics capabilities make it a powerful UX research tool for understanding and optimizing user journeys.

Kissmetrics Pricing

Kissmetrics pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• In-depth event analytics for web and mobile platforms.
• Detailed insights into user behavior and journeys.
• Powerful tool for optimizing user experiences.

Kissmetrics Reviews

Kissmetrics is recognized for its detailed event analytics and user behavior insights, particularly valuable for web and mobile platform optimization. – via G2

25. Typeform

Typeform makes data collection fun with its interactive forms and surveys. Its engaging and user-friendly approach makes it an excellent tool for UX research teams looking to gather feedback in a more conversational and engaging manner.

Typeform Pricing

• Paid plans start from $35/month.

Typeform Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Engaging and interactive forms and surveys.
• User-friendly interface for data collection.
• Customizable options for unique feedback gathering.
• Limited advanced analytics and reporting features.

Typeform Reviews

Typeform earns acclaim for its engaging and interactive forms, making it a favorite for user-friendly and conversational data collection. – via TechRadar

26. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a widely recognized platform for creating surveys, offering a range of tools for data collection and analysis. Although not considered a UX research tool in the traditional sense, SurveyMonkey’s versatility and brand recognition make it a popular choice for UX research teams across various industries.

SurveyMonkey Pricing

• Standard plan starts at $99/year.
• Advantage and Premier plans with advanced features.

SurveyMonkey Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Wide range of survey creation tools.
• Easy to use with a user-friendly interface.
• Suitable for various industries and research needs.
• Limited customization options in the free plan.

SurveyMonkey Reviews

SurveyMonkey is well-regarded for its versatile survey creation tools and ease of use, suitable for a wide range of industries and research needs. – via PCMag

Ethnio specializes in participant management, providing software that is designed to streamline the process of recruiting and scheduling testers. It’s a decent tool for UX research teams looking to manage their UX research logistics more efficiently.

Ethnio Pricing

Ethnio pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Specializes in participant management for UX research.
• Streamlines recruiting and scheduling processes.
• Efficient tool for managing research logistics.

Ethnio Reviews

Ethnio is appreciated for its specialized focus on participant management, streamlining the UX research process for teams. – via G2

UXArmy offers remote user testing and a variety of UX research tools, including card sorting and tree testing. Its generous suite of tools makes it a useful solution for Asian companies with diverse UX research needs, from unmoderated usability testing to card sorting.

UXArmy Pricing

Uxarmy pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Offers remote user testing and diverse UX tools.
• Focused on Asian markets.
• Supports card sorting and tree testing.
• There are better-suited UX research tools for non-Asian markets.

UXArmy Reviews

UXArmy is commended for its remote user testing capabilities and comprehensive suite of UX tools, offering a one-stop solution for research needs. – via G2

29. kardSort

kardSort is an online tool dedicated to conducting card sorting studies, which are useful for designing information architecture. Its niche focus makes it a valuable tool for UX research teams working on structuring and categorizing content.

kardSort Pricing

Kardsort pros & cons vs. other ux research tools.

• Specialized in card sorting studies for information architecture.
• Valuable tool for content structuring and categorization.
• Ideal for teams focusing on user-friendly navigation.
• Pricing lacks transparency.

kardSort Reviews

No legitimate published reviews could be found for kardSort.

Zoom , the popular video conferencing platform, is also effectively used for remote moderated UX research. Its widespread adoption and ease of use make it a convenient choice for conducting remote interviews and moderated usability tests.

Zoom Pricing

• Free plan with a 40-minute limit on group meetings.
• Pro plan at $14.99/month per user.
• Business and Enterprise plans with additional features.

Zoom Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Widely used for video conferencing and remote UX research.
• Easy to use with a broad adoption rate.
• Supports screen sharing and session recording.
• Limited UX research-specific features.

Zoom Reviews

Zoom is highly popular for its video conferencing capabilities, also effectively used for remote UX research due to its widespread adoption and ease of use. – via Forbes

31. Google Meet

Google Meet offers a straightforward and reliable platform for remote moderated UX research. Its integration with Google Workspace and features like live closed captions make it a practical choice for teams looking for a simple yet effective moderated research tool.

Google Meet Pricing

• Workspace plans with advanced features starting at $6/month per user.
• Enterprise solutions with custom pricing.

Google Meet Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Simple and reliable platform for remote UX research.
• Integrated with Google Workspace for seamless collaboration.
• Live closed captions feature for accessibility.
• Mobile users need to download an app for access.

Google Meet Reviews

Google Meet is noted for its straightforward and reliable platform, ideal for remote UX research with features like live closed captions. – via The Ascent by The Motley Fool

32. Jotform

Jotform is an online form builder, great for creating surveys and forms for UX research. Its user-friendly interface and customization options make it a solid tool for gathering user feedback in a structured and engaging way.

Jotform Pricing

• Bronze plan at $29/month.
• Silver and Gold plans with advanced features and higher limits.

Jotform Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• User-friendly online form builder for surveys and feedback.
• Customizable forms with various templates.
• Suitable for diverse data collection needs.
• Limited advanced analytics in the free plan.

Jotform Reviews

Jotform is favored for its user-friendly form builder, offering customizable options for surveys and feedback collection. – via G2

33. Qualaroo

Qualaroo offers user feedback software with innovative technology, which is famed for collecting non-intrusive, real-time feedback. While not a traditional UX research platform, Qualaroo’s ability to gently prompt users for feedback makes it a useful tool for capturing user insights.

Qualaroo Pricing

• Essentials plan starts at $80/month.
• Premium plan with advanced features at $160/month.

Qualaroo Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Innovative Nudge™ technology for non-intrusive feedback.
• Real-time user feedback collection.
• Suitable for gathering genuine user insights.
• Can be expensive for smaller teams or individual researchers.

Qualaroo Reviews

Qualaroo is recognized for its innovative Nudge™ technology, providing non-intrusive, real-time user feedback collection. – via TrustRadius

34. SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow isn’t just another survey tool; it turns surveys into conversations, offering an engaging platform for collecting user feedback. Its fun, conversational interface is designed to increase response rates and gather more insightful feedback, and that’s why we’ve included it in our list of the best UX research tools.

SurveySparrow Pricing

• Paid plans start from $19/month.

SurveySparrow Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Conversational interface for engaging surveys.
• High response rates due to user-friendly design.
• Versatile platform for diverse feedback collection.

SurveySparrow Reviews

SurveySparrow receives praise for its conversational interface, enhancing response rates and gathering more insightful user feedback. – via Capterra

35. Dovetail

Dovetail is a customer insights hub, centralizing customer data for in-depth analysis and insight management. Its comprehensive approach to managing customer insights makes it a valuable CX and UX research tool for teams focused on data-driven decision-making.

Dovetail Pricing

• Starter plan at $100/month.
• Team and Business plans with advanced features.

Dovetail Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Centralized hub for customer insights and data analysis.
• Comprehensive approach to managing customer insights.
• Ideal for data-driven decision-making.

Dovetail Reviews

Dovetail is lauded for its comprehensive approach to managing customer insights, making it a valuable tool for data-driven decision-making. – via G2

36. FullStory

FullStory provides a window into the digital experiences of users, making it a useful tool for UX professionals. Rounding off our list of the best UX research tools, FullStory is praised for its session replay and heatmap features, offering detailed insights into user interactions, and helping teams uncover issues and opportunities for improvement.

FullStory Pricing

• Free plan available with essential analytics features.
• Advanced, Business, and Enterprise plans with custom pricing.

FullStory Pros & Cons vs. other UX Research Tools

• Detailed session replay and heatmap features for UX insights.
• Comprehensive data capture for in-depth analysis.
• Privacy-by-default settings for user data protection.
• Advanced features are limited to higher-tier plans.

FullStory Reviews

FullStory is appreciated for its session replay and heatmap features, offering detailed insights into digital user experiences. – via G2

Wrapping Up: 36 Best UX Research Tools & Platforms

As we wrap up our journey through the diverse landscape of the best UX research tools, it’s clear that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Each tool we’ve explored brings its unique flavor to the table, much like the varied tastes of a well-curated UX palette. Whether you’re a seasoned UX Researcher or just starting to dip your toes into the deep user experience waters, the right tool can make all the difference in crafting digital experiences that resonate with your users.

Why is Userbrain the Best UX Research Tool?

At Userbrain, we believe in keeping things simple yet effective. Our focus is on providing you with straightforward, actionable insights that help you connect deeper with your users. Remember, the best UX research tool is the one that aligns seamlessly with your project goals, team dynamics, and, most importantly, the needs of your users.

Next Steps with Userbrain: Start your Free Trial ?

It’s time to make your first steps and  start your free trial  at Userbrain. Let’s create digital experiences that aren’t just functional but truly delightful, together.

Next Steps with Userbrain: Schedule a Call ?

Your Userbrain free trial is just a click away, but if you need some hands-on advice, or if you have any questions, the Userbrain Team is always available to help you out. Schedule a call with us today!

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Book description

Good UX is based on evidence. Qualitative evidence, such as user testing and field research, can only get you so far. To get the full picture of how users are engaging with your website or app, you'll need to use quantitative evidence in the form of analytics.

This book will show you, step by step, how you can use website and app analytics data to inform design choices and definitively improve user experience. Offering practical guidelines, with plenty of detailed examples, this book covers:

• why you need to gather analytics data for your UX projects
• getting set up with analytics tools
• analyzing data
• how to find problems in your analytics
• using analytics to aid user research, measure and report on outcomes

By the end of this book, you'll have a strong understanding of the important role analytics plays in the UX process. It will inspire you to take an "analytics first" approach to your UX projects.

Publisher resources

View/Submit Errata

Table of contents

• Notice of Rights
• Notice of Liability
• Trademark Notice
• About Luke Hay
• About SitePoint
• Who Should Read This Book
• Tips, Notes, and Warnings
• Supplementary Materials
• Advantages of Using Analytics in Your UX Process
• Arguments Against Using Analytics
• Quantitative Methods
• Qualitative Methods
• Website Analytics Tools
• Heatmapping and Session Recording Tools
• Split Testing Tools
• Other Useful Analytics Tools
• Using Tools Together
• Analytics Tools Summary
• Accounts, Properties and Views
• Getting Access to Analytics
• Is the Analytics Code Installed on Every Page?
• Is the Analytics Code Installed in the Correct Place?
• Are Custom “Events” Set Up?
• Are Custom “Goals” Set Up?
• Is Ecommerce Tracking Set Up?
• Is Internal Site Search Set Up?
• Have Demographic Reports Been Enabled?
• How Much Data Do You Have Available?
• Does Your Analytics Data Match Other Data Sources?
• Is Your Analytics Account Well Annotated?
• Has Content Grouping Been Set Up?
• Confusing Visits and Views
• Obsessing over Visits and Views
• Getting Drawn into the Numbers
• Thinking Low Numbers Are Always Bad
• Confusing Correlation with Causation
• Grouping All Visits Together
• Analyzing Too Broadly
• Focusing on Numbers Rather than Trends
• Including Bot or Spam Traffic
• Not Customizing Your Setup
• Not Generating Actionable Takeaways
• Dimensions and Metrics
• Sessions, Visits, Page Views and Unique Page Views
• Users and Visitors
• Visit/Session Duration and Time on Page
• Bounce and Exit Rates
• Conversions and Goals
• Segments and Filters
• Navigating the Google Analytics Home Page
• Navigating the Main Google Analytics Interface
• Navigating Google Analytics Graphs
• Navigating Within Google Analytics Reports
• Analysis Over Time
• Analyzing Different Groups
• Analyzing Data from Different Tools
• Analyzing Data Outside of Your Analytics Packages
• Analyzing for UX
• Time on Page
• 404 Error Pages
• Content Grouping
• Identifying Drop-off Points
• Navigating Between Individual Pages
• Goal Funnels
• Analyzing Funnels
• Event Tracking
• Click Mapping
• Scroll Mapping
• Session Recordings
• Search vs No Search
• Search Terms
• Pages Where Search Is Used
• Finding Problems with Analytics
• Where Analytics Sits in the Research Process
• How Do Users Find Your Website?
• Where Do Your Users Come From?
• What Language Do Your Users Speak?
• What Devices and Browsers Are They Using?
• What are the Genders and Ages of Your Users?
• How Frequently Are Your Users Visiting?
• What Content Are They Interested In?
• Using Data for Persona Creation
• Creating Persona-based Segments
• Using Persona-based Segments
• Benchmarking in Google Analytics
• Other Benchmarking Techniques
• An Analytics-first Approach to User Research
• A/B Testing
• Multivariate Testing
• Multi-page Testing
• Which Type of Split Test Should I Use?
• Targeting Your Test
• Choosing Your Goals
• Duration of Test
• Statistical Significance
• Segmenting Your Results
• Integrating with Analytics
• Running Before/after Testing
• Problems with Before/after Testing
• Analyzing Before/after Testing
• Design Changes and Returning Visitors
• Reporting on the Results of Split Tests
• Reporting Before/after Results
• Ongoing Reporting
• Using Analytics for Continuous Improvement
• Measuring and Reporting are Crucial
• Google Analytics Glossary

Product information

• Title: Researching UX: Analytics
• Author(s): Luke Hay
• Release date: January 2017
• Publisher(s): SitePoint
• ISBN: 9781492018414

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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Meet the 19 top-rated UX research tools & software for 2024

Building your UX research tool stack is an essential step in establishing an effective research practice. Read on for a round up of essential tools that will help you conduct UX research and move the needle in your organization.

What tools do UX researchers use?

UX researchers use a wide variety of tools to conduct user experience research . These tools have unique functions—each of which helps conduct different research and uncover insightful data.

Here’s a look at some of the tools that UX researchers use to get the insights they need to improve UX:

• Tools for user and usability testing : These tools help UX researchers evaluate how easy to use their products and features are
• Tools for user interviews: These tools help conduct live interviews to get direct feedback from users
• Tools for recruiting research participants: These tools help find participants for user research interviews
• Tools for testing information architecture: These tools help evaluate the layout of your website and how users expect your navigation to work
• Tools for product analytics: These tools provide data on how users interact with your website
• Tools for user surveys and feedback: These tools enable you to create surveys that collect feedback and insights from users

We’ve hand-picked a number of the best UX research tools for each of these categories to help you improve your UX research processes and workflows. Take a look at this overview before we take a closer look at each.

Tools for usability testing

UX research tools do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to user research. From recruiting participants and planning the interviews to getting feedback, and sharing your findings, having a great tool stack is important for running a great research practice .

Selecting the right UX research toolkit depends on where you are in the research process, the research method you’ll be using, the size of your organization, and the type of product you’re researching. Ready to get hands-on with research? Here are some tools to consider.

Maze is a continuous product discovery platform that empowers product teams to collect and consume user insights, continuously. With solutions for participant recruitment, product research, and reporting, Maze helps teams build the habit of continuous product discovery in a platform that enables everyone to run great research.

Maze integrates directly with Adobe XD, Figma, InVision, Marvel, and Sketch, and allows you to import an existing prototype from the design tool you use.

You can create and run in-depth usability tests at any stage of your research plan , to get actionable insights in minutes. Its usability testing solution includes task analysis, multiple path analysis, heatmaps, A/B testing, guerrilla testing, and more.

Maze allows you to run surveys and collect user feedback early in the design process, and also enables you to test your information architecture with features such as Card Sorts and Tree Tests.

Maze's reporting functionality automatically records and documents completion rates, misclick rates, time spent, click heatmaps, and more. Maze also generates a usability test report instantly for each test, that you can share with anyone with a link.

Key features: Integrations with leading design platforms, remote testing, surveys, IA testing, real-time reports, question repository , collaboration features, pre-built templates Pricing: Free for one project and five seats per month, then from $99 per month

Collect UX research insights at scale

Optimize your user experience with actionable insights from card sorting, tree testing, prototype testing, usability testing, and more.

Loop11 helps you conduct moderated and unmoderated usability testing on live websites, prototypes, and competitors’ websites, among others. With Loop11, you can start testing at the wireframing and prototyping stage to ensure your designs are headed in the right direction.

Beyond usability testing, Loop11 can help user researchers conduct competitive benchmarking , A/B testing, and IA testing.

Key features: Online usability testing, prototype testing, benchmarking, A/B testing, IA testing Pricing: From $63 per month

3. Userlytics

Userlytics is a user testing platform that helps you conduct research at scale by testing digital assets like websites, applications, mobile apps, prototypes, etc. You can collect both qualitative and quantitative data and set up advanced metrics and graphical reports.

With Userlytics, you can run any combination of moderated or unmoderated user experience studies, usability tests, card sorting, and tree testing using a diversity of features.

Key features: Usability testing, user experience studies, prototype testing, live conversations, card sorting, tree testing Pricing: From $49 per month

4. UsabilityHub

UsabilityHub is a remote research platform that offers a range of testing tools, including first click testing, design surveys, preference tests, and five-second tests. These tests enable you to collect data and validate design decisions.

With UsabilityHub’s Panel, researchers can recruit test users from a pool of participants based on criteria such as age, gender, education, and more to get feedback from a relevant target audience.

Key features: Remote user testing, first-click testing, design surveys, preference tests, five-second tests, participant recruitment Pricing: From $79 per month

💡 Want more? Check out our full list of usability testing tools here .

Tools for user interviews

5. lookback.

Lookback is a comprehensive user research tool that offers you the ability to do live user interviews contextualized through a live recording of the user’s screen. Lookback helps you conduct moderated, unmoderated, and remote research and includes a collaborative dashboard that lets you sync all your research and customer feedback and share it with your team.

Lookback sessions are recorded automatically, so you can rewatch them at your convenience and create highlight clips to share with colleagues and stakeholders. Among other things, the team plan allows you to do remote or in-person research, test with prototypes and invite observers to see in real-time.

Key features: Remote user research in real-time, moderated and unmoderated testing, collaborative dashboard, live note-taking Pricing: From $99 per month

6. Userzoom

Userzoom is a UX research platform for remote usability testing and includes features such as participant recruiting, heatmap and analytics recording, etc. You can use it to collect quantitative or qualitative feedback and create A/B tests with mock-ups to get feedback from users before product development.

With Userzoom, you can run unmoderated task-based studies with test participants from all around the world on a website, prototype, wireframe, or mock-up.

Key features: Usability testing, interviews, surveys, intercept testing, click testing, tree testing, card sorting, participant recruiting Pricing: Available upon request

dscout is a remote qualitative research platform that helps you collect in-context insights from the people who use your products. One component of the platform is dscout Live, which lets you run remote user interviews and collect feedback from participants. You can also run diary studies with dscout Diary to see people’s everyday product experience as it happens either on video or in photos. And with dscout Recruit, you can recruit research participants without the hassle and cost associated with traditional recruiting.

dscout is also helpful because it streamlines the most time-consuming parts of interviews with research-centric features such as participant scheduling, automatic transcriptions, on-call observers, and an interactive timeline for taking notes and clips.

Key features: Unmoderated research, remote user interviews, participant recruiting, automatic transcriptions, on-call observers, interactive timeline for taking notes Pricing: Available upon request

Tools for recruiting research participants

8. user interviews.

User Interviews is a well-known platform that helps you make better product decisions with seamless access to quality participants. The platform is known for allowing you to build your own pool of participants or access their panel of over 350,000 vetted research participants who can be filtered by profession.

User Interviews offers features like screener surveys, scheduling interviews, and participation tracking for your existing users. The median turnaround time is 2 hours, though it can vary based on the project.

Key features: Participant recruitment, screener surveys, scheduling interviews, messaging participants, automatic incentives, participation tracking Pricing: From $40 per session or $250 per month

Another user research tool for selecting participants is Ethnio, which enables you to create screeners for intercepting people on your website or app so that you can find the right participants for user research. Ethnio provides various filters for screeners and automated scheduling options that help streamline the process of getting in touch with users.

Within the platform, Ethnio also includes a tool called Research Incentives, a calculator that helps you reward your participants by instantly paying them using different online services.

Key features: Participant recruitment, central participant database, incentives, screeners, intercepts, scheduling options Pricing: From $79 per month

Ribbon is an all-in-one participant recruitment and screening tool that allows you to find users, screen them, and automatically schedule user interviews.

If you’re looking for a simple does-what-it-says recruitment tool, then Ribbon’s a great choice. They’re also currently working on features including interview transcripts and participant incentives.

Key features: Participant recruitment, screeners, automatic interview scheduling, incentive management, moderated interviews Pricing: From $79 per month

Tools for information architecture testing

11. optimal workshop.

Optimal Workshop offers a suite of testing tools to help you conduct information architecture (IA) tests. For card sorting, you can use their OptimalSort tool to understand how people think your content should be organized and categorized.

Another component of Optimal Work is Treejack, which helps you conduct unmoderated tree tests to identify if users are currently getting lost on your site and where they expect to find key information.

Key features: Card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, IA testing, online surveys, qualitative research, participant recruitment Pricing: From $99 per month

12. kardSort

kardSort is an online card sorting tool which offers moderated, unmoderated, and hybrid card sorting.

As user-friendly as they come, kardSort operates in a simple drag-and-drop function which makes card sorting easy for researchers and participants alike.

Working on all browsers, you can set up and run a card sorting session incredibly quickly, and it’s ideal for asynchronous sessions due to its simplicity and ability to add pre or post-study questions.

Key features: Moderated, unmoderated and hybrid card sorting, pre and post-study interviews, tool tips Pricing: Free

UXarmy provides a variety of user testing solutions to help you run information architecture testing via tree tests and card sorting. You can create tests on the platform, or import existing ones.

The platform makes evaluating your layout easy, and in-depth analytics help you uncover insights from tests—including participant analysis, path analysis, and destination matrixes. It’s quick and easy to get started, and provides an intuitive process for your participants.

Key features: Card sorting, tree testing, moderated and unmoderated usability testing Pricing: All solutions are stand-alone, with card sorting costing $79 per month and tree testing $99 per month

Tools for product analytics

Hotjar is a remote research tool which allows you to view real-time user behavior via heatmaps and screen recordings.

With a huge amount of data available, plus in-app surveys, Hotjar is a great solution if you’re looking to focus on heatmapping as a research method and want to really understand the nuance of user behavior.

Key features: Heatmaps, screen recordings, unmoderated research, in-product feedback widgets and follow-up surveys Pricing: Free for 35 sessions, then from $39 per month

15. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is an event analytics platform that helps you track user behavior across your site. By giving you information about how customers interact with your product, Kissmetrics helps you acquire qualified prospects, convert trials to customers, and reduce churn.

It gives you tools to gain insights into how users interact with your product—especially if your primary focus is revenue.

Key features: Custom event tracking, entry and exit pages, on-page engagement, custom reports dashboards, segmentation, session analytics, and funnels Pricing: Billed per event ($0.0025/event) or build your own plan (starting at $25.99 per month for 10k events)

15. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is an events analytics tool that lets you see every moment of the customer experience. It lets you splice and dice data to uncover trends and find the root of the problem.

It’s a great tool for getting insights the whole team can understand and use, with collaborative notes, goals, and boards. With an easy learning curve, it’s a fast tool to pick up and get started with.

Key features: Customizable dashboards, anomaly explanations, filters, event tracking, demographic breakdowns, user journey analysis Pricing: Free plan with limited features and paid plans starting from $20 per month

Tools for user surveys and feedback

17. surveymonkey.

SurveyMonkey is a popular survey tool that helps you collect customer feedback via online questionnaires. It’s easy to use and easily customizable—from the in-survey branding and background to the font and URL.

SurveyMonkey’s AI feature—SurveyMonkey Genius—provides guidance and support to help you create optimized surveys. It’s a quick and easy tool for making surveys that get the insights you need.

Key features: Fully-customizable online surveys, market research solutions, Genius AI solution, online form embedding Pricing: Free plan with basic features, team plans start at $25 per user/month

18. Typeform

Typerform is another online survey builder that helps you build forms which stand out and collect the information you need.

Typeform integrates with your existing workflow to help streamline the customer feedback collection process, and provides a smooth, effortless experience for the users you’re surveying—ideal when UX is crucial and you don’t want a clunky experience to get in the way of authentic insights.

Key features: Simple form builder, branded forms, key integrations, varied question formats Pricing: Typeform starts at $25 per month for one user and 100 responses per month

19. Jotform

Jotform is an online form builder that provides templates for you to use in your customer feedback process. It shares many key features with the other survey tools on our list, but also offers a number of other solutions—like a no-code app builder and online storefront builder.

It’s an intuitive platform that helps you create branded surveys in minutes, making it a great all-in-one platform if you’re limited on budget.

Key features: Intuitive form builder, ample integrations, report generations, workflow automation Pricing: Free plan with survey limits, paid plans from $34 per month

Bonus tools to help with UX research

Alongside the dedicated user research tools, there are also a number of other tools that will help improve your user research process. Here’s the honorable mentions from our list to add to your tool stack.

For documenting research: Dovetail, Notion, Evernote, Miro For transcriptions: Otter.ai, Rev, Reduct For remote user testing: Zoom, Google Meet, Slack

How to select the best UX research tool

As you can see, there are lots of UX research tools to choose from. Your primary considerations when selecting a tool is the type of research you’re looking to conduct, but there are a number of other things to keep in mind:

• Ease of use and interface: Is the tool easy to use? Can you pick it up and get started straight away?
• Scalability: Can the tool grow with your research needs? Does it require technical help for scaling up, or can you scale rapidly?
• Support available: Is anyone on hand to help you when you get stuck? Is there a dedicated help center to support your success?
• Free trial/account: Can you try before you buy? What can you get done with the free version of a tool?

Whatever your needs, there’s a UX research tool out there for you.

If your needs include concept and idea validation, wireframe and usability testing, moderated interview analysis, and more—give Maze a try.

Maze enables you to get user insights fast, helping you to make informed decisions that improve your product.

Accelerate and scale your UX research

Get the insights you need to build better user experiences, with Maze’s suite of user research solutions.

Frequently asked questions about UX research tools

Some common tools that UX researchers use include tools for usability testing, user interviews, surveys, card sorting, tree testing, and first-click testing. A UX research tool stack may also include solutions for recruiting participants, documenting research, and transcribing interviews. Other examples are analytics and heat-mapping tools and remote user testing tools .

What is user experience (UX) design?

User experience design is the process designers use to build products that provide great experiences to their users. UX design refers to feelings and emotions users experience when interacting with a product. It focuses on the user flow and how easy it is for the user to accomplish their desired goals.

What is a UX research tool?

A UX research tool is a piece of software, tool, or app that enables UX researchers to maximise their research effectiveness and gather insights. Popular research tools include survey, recruitment, and interview software.

How to establish a strategic UX research process

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The 10 best UX research tools to use in 2023

In this guide, we introduce 9 of the best UX research tools on the market right now. We’ll also share some advice on how to choose the most suitable tools for your work.

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All good UX begins with user research—and all good user research relies on the right tools. 

But, with so many tools to choose from, where do you even start? 

Look no further. In this guide, we introduce 9 of the best UX research tools on the market right now. We’ll also share some advice on how to choose the most suitable tools for your work.

What is UX research and why does it matter?

• 9 of the best UX research tools available in 2023

How to choose the right tools for your UX research

Ready to become a user research pro? Let’s begin. 

[GET CERTIFIED IN USER RESEARCH]

Before we explore the best tools for the job, let’s recap on what exactly UX research is—and why it’s so important.

UX design is all about solving a real problem for real, human users. UX research helps you to identify the problem you need to solve, and to understand how best to solve it based on what you know about your users. 

Without user research, you’re basing your work on assumptions. This inevitably leads to a mismatch between the user experience and the people you’re designing it for—i.e. bad UX!

That’s why all good designers start their UX process with research. UX research involves:

• Conducting interviews, surveys, card sorting exercises and focus groups (to name a few!) with real or representative users to see what they expect from the user experience and what pain-points they currently encounter
• Analysing the data gathered to uncover key themes and user problems
• Defining the scope of the problems uncovered and determining what to prioritise
• Sharing your findings with key stakeholders
• Continually testing and iterating on your designs to optimise the user experience

You can learn more about what UX research is in this dedicated guide .

What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

As you consider what tools to use for your UX research, it’s important to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative research. 

Quantitative user research gathers objective, measurable data that can be quantified (i.e. counted). Some examples of quantitative data might be the number of clicks it takes a user to complete their desired task on a website, or the percentage of users who bounce in a given time frame.

Qualitative user research isn’t concretely measurable, but it can give you much deeper insights into how your users think, feel and behave. For example, if you conduct interviews to find out how your users feel about a particular product, that’s qualitative research. Likewise, if you observe a user trying to navigate an app and note down that they get really frustrated, that’s qualitative data. 

UX designers tend to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research for a broad and detailed picture of their users. 

What’s the difference between moderated and unmoderated user research?

Another distinction to be aware of is that between moderated and unmoderated research. 

Moderated UX research takes place with the user researcher present. If you’re interviewing a user live via video call, or observing them while they complete a certain task and asking follow-up questions, you’re conducting moderated UX research.

Unmoderated UX research takes place without your supervision. This includes things like surveys which the user answers in their own time, or usability tests where the user might record their screen while they interact with your website.

What are the best UX research tools?

Now we know about the different types of user research you might conduct, let’s explore some of the best UX research tools on the market right now. 

1. Optimal Workshop for card sorting, tree testing and first-click testing

Optimal Workshop isn’t just a user research tool—it’s an entire toolbox. You can use it to conduct both qualitative and quantitative user research, and to recruit participants.

Optimal Workshop allows you to see participant responses as they come in, and to view your data in the form of easy-to-understand visualisations—ideal for sharing your insights with others. 

You can use Optimal Workshop to conduct card sorting exercises, tree testing, first-click testing, and surveys. 

Optimal Workshop comprises 5 tools:

• OptimalSort , a card sorting tool that shows you how your users categorise information. This is useful when mapping out the information architecture of a website or app.
• Treejack , a tree testing tool that shows you how easily people can find information on your website or app—and where they get lost.
• Chalkmark for first-click testing. This enables you to test the usability of an existing design. You can upload screenshots, sketches or wireframes and test to see if users are able to navigate with ease.
• Questions for creating and sending out online surveys. You can attach wireframes or sketches for more specific feedback.
• Reframer for note-taking and documentation. This is useful for organising all your qualitative research insights in one place. Reframer is actually number 8 on our list, so more on that later!

Main features at a glance:

• 1 platform, 5 tools for card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, surveys, and documenting qualitative research insights
• Participant recruitment service (available in 70+ languages)
• View participant responses as they come in
• Data visualisations accessible via the Optimal Workshop dashboard

How much does it cost?

Optimal Workshop offers a free plan with no requirement to upgrade. If you do want more functionality, paid options include:

• The Starter plan for small-scale research projects at $99/month (approx. €88).
• The Pro plan for unlimited studies at $166/month (approx. €150) for 1 user.
• The Team plan for unlimited studies at $153/month per user (approx. €140) for up to 3 users. 

2. Looppanel for user interviews and usability tests

Looppanel is an AI-powered research analysis & repository product that makes it 5x faster to discover and share user insights.

Looppanel acts like your research assistant: it records, transcribes, creates notes, and organizes your data for easy analysis.

Teams like PandaDoc, Huge Inc., Airtel, and others use Looppanel to streamline research analysis and build their insights repository.

Main Features at a glance

• Automatically generated notes for user interviews
• 90%+ accuracy transcription in 8 languages
• Integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams to auto-record calls
• Time-stamped notes taken live during interviews
• Ability to tag and annotate on transcripts
• 1-click to create shareable video clips
• Analysis workspace to view project data by question or tag
• Search across projects

Looppanel offers a free 15-day trial. After that, you can choose from a range of paid plans:

• Starter (for small teams / solo researchers): An affordable starter plan for $30/month that includes 10 transcription hours / month
• Teams: For teams of 3+ researchers, this plan is priced at $350/month and comes with 30 transcription hours / month
• Business: For organizations with large teams or significant security requirements, the business plan costs $1,000/month for 120 transcription hours / month
• Custom: For enterprise teams of larger sizes

3. Lookback for user interviews 

Lookback is a video research platform for conducting both moderated and unmoderated user interviews and usability tests. 

The collaborative dashboard allows you to sync all your research, tag your teammates, and create highlight reels of all the most useful insights. You can set up virtual observation rooms, record users’ screens as they navigate your app or website, and transcribe your user interviews. 

• Moderated and unmoderated video interviews and user testing sessions
• Timestamped notes captured live during sessions
• Virtual observation rooms: Invite stakeholders to observe user research sessions and chat with each other in a separate virtual room
• Screen capturing: Watch and record participant touches on mobile screens during interactions
• Create highlight videos and compile them into highlight reels
• Collaborative dashboard 

Lookback offers a free 14-day trial. After that, there are a range of paid plans to choose from:

• Freelance: An affordable solo plan for $17/month (approx. €15). Includes 10 sessions/year.
• Team: $99/month (approx. €90) for 100 sessions/year. 
• Insights Hub: $229/month (approx. €205) for 300 sessions/year. 

4. Typeform for surveys

Surveys are a UX research staple, offering a quick, easy and inexpensive way to gather user insights. When sending out surveys for UX research, you’ll usually ask questions about the respondents’ attitudes and preferences in relation to the product or service you’re designing. 

Typeform is one of the most popular survey tools among UX designers. With Typeform, you can design your own surveys from scratch or choose from a range of templates. After you’ve distributed your survey, you can see responses and completion rates and generate shareable reports. 

• Dozens of UX research templates, including a user persona survey template , a product research survey template and a product feedback template
• Conditional logic to ensure that users only see relevant follow-up questions based on their previous answer
• Shareable reports after survey completion
• Integrations for Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable and more

Typeform has a free plan with unlimited forms, 10 questions per form, and 10 responses per month. You can stay on the free plan for as long as you like, or upgrade for additional features:

• Basic: €21/month (1 user, unlimited typeforms, up to 100 responses/month)
• Plus: €46/month (3 users, unlimited typeforms, up to 1,000 responses/month)
• Business: €75/month (5 users, unlimited typeforms, up to 10,000 responses/month)

View all price plans and features on the Typeform website .

5. Maze for user surveys, concept validation, and wireframe & prototype testing

Maze is another UX research all-rounder with a focus on rapid testing. You can use it for card sorting, tree testing, 5-second tests, surveys, and to test wireframes and prototypes on real users. 

Maze integrates with all the industry-standard UX tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD and InVision. It’s even got a built-in panel of user testers, promising user insights in less than 2 hours. 

Maze also handles the analytics, presenting your research insights in the form of a visual report. 

• Prototype testing to validate your designs before developing them
• Tree testing to ensure your information architecture is user-friendly
• 5-second testing to assess user sentiment when first interacting with your product
• Surveys to scale your UX research
• Card sorting to help plan or test your product’s information architecture
• Built-in panel of over 70,000 testers
• Analytics and visual reports

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6. UserZoom for surveys, card sorting, click testing, and usability tests

Similar to Optimal Workshop and Maze, UserZoom is a complete UX research toolbox used for card sorting, usability testing, surveys, click testing, tree testing, and user interviews. The platform also includes a fully-integrated participant recruitment engine with over 120 million users worldwide. 

• Moderated and unmoderated usability testing
• Surveys for quickly gathering user feedback at scale
• Click testing to evaluate early stage concepts
• Open and closed card sorting to inform your information architecture and understand your users’ mental models
• Interviews to gather self-reported insights from your users
• Tree testing to assess your information architecture
• Participant recruitment engine with over 120 million users worldwide
• Integrations with Adobe XD, Miro, Jira, Mural, Typeform and more

UserZoom offers custom price plans depending on your needs. Find out more here .

7. dscout for remote user interviews and diary studies

A versatile suite of research tools, dscout is ideal for conducting remote user studies. 

There are four main pillars of the dscout platform: Diary, Live, Recruit, and Express. 

Diary is a remote diary studies tool which allows you to gather contextual, qualitative insights into user behaviour and experiences. If you’re new to diary studies, dscout has put together a helpful guide on how and why to conduct diary studies here . 

Live is a user interview tool, and Express is a flexible user survey solution. Recruit is the final piece in the puzzle: a panel of over 100 thousand users you can enlist for your UX research.

• Diary for conducting remote diary studies
• Live for user interviews with auto-transcribe, real-time note-taking and screen-sharing capabilities
• Express for user surveys
• Recruit, a built-in panel of 100 thousand user research participants
• Research synthesis and analysis: automatically generate charts and word clouds
• Loads of guides, resources and templates to help you get started

dscout offers customisable subscription plans depending on your needs. You can learn more about the different plans and request a quote here .

8. Hotjar for analytics and heatmaps

Hotjar is a powerful behaviour analytics tool that enables you to really see how your users engage with an existing product. 

You can use Hotjar to send out surveys, capture and watch screen recordings of people interacting with your website, create heatmaps, and gather real-time user feedback. Hotjar is all about stepping into your users’ shoes and improving the user experience accordingly!

• Heatmaps to see where users click and how they navigate your site. This is helpful for identifying any usability issues or UX flaws
• Screen recordings to see first-hand how people interact with your product
• Real-time user feedback via a suggestion box integrated into your website
• Surveys and survey templates 
• Integrations with Slack, Miro, Jira, Asana and more

Hotjar’s basic free plan is pretty extensive, offering up to 35 daily sessions, unlimited heatmaps, and up to 1,050 recordings per month. For more research capability, paid plans include:

• Plus: €31/month —ideal for small teams
• Business: €79/month —for growing companies and websites
• Scale: €311/month —for large companies and websites

See Hotjar’s price overview for more information.

9. Reframer for analysing qualitative research

Reframer is part of the Optimal Workshop suite of UX research tools (number 1 on our list), but we think it’s worth a special mention. As UX designer Carrie Nusbaum notes in her own review of Reframer : “There are many tools that support the act of actual user testing, and many that facilitate design. Relatively few tools, however, specifically support some important steps that take place in between, namely: data organisation, research synthesis, and presentation of findings.”

Reframer seeks to fill this gap. It’s a unique tool dedicated to capturing all your qualitative research notes in one place, helping you to analyse and make sense of them. It’s your “qualitative research sidekick”, bringing some much-needed structure to the often messy task of qualitative research. 

• Directly capture research observations straight into Reframer; no Post-it notes or separate Google Doc needed
• Theme builder: easily construct a coding system with tags and build out themes for your research findings
• Chord and bubble charts to visualise your findings and easily spot patterns and trends
• XLS export: you can export your research as a .xls file, enabling you to transfer it to other tools and platforms if needed

You can use Reframer as part of the Optimal Workshop toolbox. Optimal Workshop offers a free plan which you can use for as long as you like. For increased functionality, the following paid plans are available:

10. Asana for planning and organising your UX research

Asana isn’t a UX research tool per se, but it’s an excellent tool for organising and keeping track of all your research projects. 

With the Timeline feature, you can create project plans to see exactly what’s happening and when, or visualise your workflow with a Kanban-style board . This allows you to drag and drop cards into different columns depending on their status (e.g. in progress, awaiting feedback, done). 

You can add multiple collaborators to different projects, assign various tasks to individual team members, and provide updates via the commenting function. 

Asana essentially has everything you need to manage your research projects collaboratively from start to finish. 

• Shared team calendar for an overview of who’s working on what, and when
• Visual project management in the form of lists or boards, with the ability to break projects down into smaller subtasks and assign them to different stakeholders
• Project briefs and templates to standardise and streamline your workflows
• In-platform communication via task comments or private messaging
• Integrations with Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, email, and more

You can use the free basic version of Asana for as long as you like, with extensive capabilities (ideal for individuals and smaller teams). For more robust project management, Asana offers two paid plans:

• Premium at €10.99/user per month
• Business at €24.99/user per month

You’ll find more information on Asana’s pricing overview page .

Ultimately, the tools you choose to work with will depend on the UX research methodologies you want to use, and on the scale of your research. 

If you’re conducting small-scale research with just a few participants, you may not need an entire suite of tools with recruiting and analytics built in—a good survey tool and reliable video conferencing software should suffice. 

But, if you’re conducting large-scale research with dozens or even hundreds of participants, and working as part of a team, you’ll want a set of UX research tools that are collaborative and versatile, covering everything from recruiting to synthesis and analysis. 

You can mix and match your research tools, too: you might use Typeform for surveys, Lookback for user interviews, and Asana to collate all your findings. Before you settle on a specific tool, try it out with a free trial, read up on what other designers have said about their experience with the platform, and compare it to a few alternatives on the market. 

Hopefully this guide has given you a good starting point from which to build out your UX research toolkit. If you’d like to learn more about UX tools, check out this complete guide to the best tools for every stage of the UX design process .

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UX analysis: best methods and key tools

User experience (UX) analysis helps you understand how users experience your website and product, so you can prioritize decisions about how to improve it for them and ensure the user experience is as frictionless and intuitive as possible.

Last updated

Reading time, what is ux analysis.

UX analysis is the process of collecting and evaluating data about how your users are experiencing and interacting with your product, then using that data to enhance the user experience.

Effective UX analysis will give you a series of actionable steps or changes to make to better address users’ desires and pain points within your product. Your product team can implement or test these changes to see improvements in conversion rates, brand loyalty,  customer retention , and referrals.

UX analysis is generally concerned with two types of data:

Quantitative UX data: numerical and measurable metrics

Qualitative UX data: subjective user insights

What is quantitative UX data?

Quantitative data is numerical and measurable. Metrics and customer satisfaction rankings (like the ones listed below) give you valuable insight into the most common issues with your product, and their severity.

Quantitative data for UX includes:

Success rate: the percentage of users who complete a specified task, such as product onboarding, upgrading to a paid plan, or exploring a new feature

Error rate: the percentage of users who encounter an error or blocker—like a broken link, missing element, or confusing navigation—while trying to complete a task

Time to complete task: the average time users took to complete their task

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT):  how users rate their satisfaction with your product or service on a numerical scale

Net Promoter Score ® (NPS):  how likely users are to recommend your product or service to others

Customer Effort Score (CES):  how much effort users have to make to complete a task within your product

How to collect quantitative UX data

On-site surveys.

On-site surveys  help you collect user ratings and feedback with text answers, radio buttons, and checkboxes. Ask people for ratings on a numerical scale as they use your product to collect quantitative data about their experience. Ask closed-ended questions like:

How satisfied are you (on a scale of 1-5) with our [product or service]?

How likely are you to recommend our product or service to others (on a scale of 0-10)?

How much effort (on a scale of 1-5) did it take to [complete a task] within our product?

Unfavorable scores on any of these metrics can indicate UX issues. At this stage, you won’t know what they are, but you will know they exist. The role of qualitative data is to help you identify UX issues more precisely—more on this later.

User feedback widgets

Feedback widgets  are an easy way to collect feedback on specific elements or features of your product or service and are particularly helpful for  A/B testing .

Data from feedback widgets helps you identify elements and features that are blocking or causing frustration for your users, but at this stage, you won't know exactly how to improve them. You'll find out in the qualitative data section of this guide.

Heatmaps  generate visual data to show what your users are doing on your web pages—where they click, how far they scroll, and what they look at. There are three types of heatmap, each giving you information on a different aspect of the user experience:

Scroll maps

show where desktop users move their mouse on a web page, suggesting what they may be looking at.

Analyzing heatmaps data  helps you discover blockers in your user flow, but at this stage you won't understand  why  they're happening or how to fix them. That's where qualitative data can help.

What is qualitative UX data?

Qualitative data comes from subjective insight. Direct voice of the customer (VoC) feedback and verbal or written user insights tell you why customers behave a certain way, and help you identify and remove pain points.

Qualitative data for UX can reveal:

The drivers generating user interest in your product or service

The barriers that stop users from completing an action

The hooks that persuade users to convert

How to collect qualitative UX data

On- and off-site surveys.

On-site surveys  are short and simple, so they don't disrupt the user journey. They typically pop up or slide in from the edge of the page with 1-3 quick  open-ended questions . You can trigger on-site  UX surveys  to appear only on some pages or after a certain action, which makes them perfect for gathering feedback on specific elements of your product.

Off-site surveys  can be placed on a standalone page and are targeted to user segments to learn about their experience in detail. Use off-site surveys to ask a long series of open-ended questions covering the whole user experience to understand the user’s perspective in their own words.

Lab usability testing

Lab usability testing  is all about watching real users as they interact with your product. Users complete tasks on computers or mobile devices while a trained moderator observes and notes areas of confusion and opportunities for optimization.

Lab usability tests are run under standardized conditions, making them useful comparison tests between product variations. However, these tests can be expensive and may not reflect your user base or real-life situations.

With the understanding of user behavior gained from lab usability tests, you can create and test product and design variations to optimize different parts of the user experience.

📚 Read more:  learn about seven other  methods of usability testing , when you should use them, and why.

Session recordings

Session recordings  are renderings of real users' actions on your website from page to page, like mouse movement, clicks, taps, and scrolling. Session replays show you when and where users stumble, u-turn (return to a previous page),  rage click  (repeatedly click on the page), or exit.

Analyzing session recordings  will help you identify UX issues, including blockers concerning functionality and accessibility, and show you how to fix them.

💡 Pro tip:  if you're using Hotjar,  connect feedback responses to Session Recordings  to understand how what your users  said  relates to what they  experienced .

What quantitative and qualitative data tell you

When you combine quantitative and qualitative data, you get a complete picture of the user experience:

Quantitative data helps you to identify what issues your users experience, and their degree of severity.

Qualitative data gives you an understanding of why and how these issues affect your users, and how to fix them.

For example, quantitative data might reveal that users interact with certain page elements, but they don't click your  call to action  (CTA) button. Once you’ve identified this issue, qualitative data can show you  why  users aren't taking the next step, and what you can do to persuade them.

Combine the quantitative powers of Google Analytics with the qualitative powers of Hotjar

Combine a traditional web analytics tool like Google Analytics (GA) with a product experience insights tool like Hotjar to connect the dots between  what  is happening on your site and  why , so you can find out  how  to improve the user experience for your customers.

📚  Read more:  learn  how to use GA and Hotjar together  to grow your business.

Improve UX with product experience insights from Hotjar

Use Hotjar to understand how real users are experiencing your website or app—then improve it for them!

6 steps to UX analysis

Now you’ve collected UX data through one or more of the methods mentioned above, it's time to make some sense of it:  UX analysis is all about organizing your data and looking for patterns and recurring issues.

Here are six steps to UX analysis:

1. Identify user issues

When you first review your UX data you’ll be looking at hundreds, possibly thousands of data points. Qualitative data will help you to identify the most common user issues.

Here are three examples of issues you might want to focus on:

Being unable to complete user onboarding

Not knowing how to upgrade to a paid plan

Difficulty accessing a product feature

2. Organize your UX data

Organize your UX data around issues your users encountered while performing certain tasks. These issues could include getting frustrated and abandoning a half-completed profile, not being able to process a payment, or feeling confused when navigating a product page.

What was the issue?

What actions did they take?

What feedback did they give?

Add categories and tags so you can sort and filter your data. For example:

Category (location): payment, onboarding, upgrading,

Tag 1 (element): payment, icons, menu

Tag 2 (experience): confusion, disappointment, hesitation

💡 Pro tip:  record your UX data in a way that lets you sort it, move it around, add notes, and share with your team. Take a look at the  UX tools  page of this guide to find the right tool for this job.

3. Look for recurring issues

Your UX data and user feedback will point you towards common user issues. Analyze session recordings to understand why these issues exist, then:

Group issues involving the same tasks, like completing a profile, processing a payment, or navigating a menu.

Tally the number of users experiencing identical or closely related issues.

Look for patterns and repetition to identify recurring issues. If you notice that some users couldn’t find your support center and other users found it hard to find your email address, you might conclude that your contact details are hard to find.

4. Prioritize fixes

Now you have a list of issues with your product and you know what's causing friction in the user experience, it's time to categorize and prioritize fixes.

Use a system like this one:

Critical: users find it impossible to complete tasks

Serious: users are frustrated with their experience and are quitting their tasks

Minor: users are annoyed, but not enough to quit

Decide which  UX metrics  you want to prioritize. For example, if your metric is  user retention , being unable to complete payments is more urgent than disliking the product design.

5. Share your findings and recommendations

You’ve evaluated your UX data and have prioritized the most urgent issues. Now it's time to compile a report to begin testing improvements, and share your findings with your product team.

A good UX analysis report should:

Highlight the most urgent issues

Be specific about the nature of each issue

Include evidence like videos, screenshots, and transcripts

Recommend solutions that are effective and efficient

Include positive findings to let your team know what’s working well

💡 Pro tip:  Hotjar makes it easy for cross-team collaboration by letting you  forward Recordings and Surveys  to your team in Slack.

It's as simple as this:

6. Build and test new features

The  Lean UX model  is a three-phase approach for processing UX feedback:

THINK: product teams brainstorm possible areas of improvement

MAKE: product designers and developers build a new feature to solve a user problem

CHECK: product teams test the new feature with surveys and to figure out if users respond well to it.

When your product team is doing UX analysis in the CHECK phase, you'll test changes and fixes to learn whether they work, to see how users respond, and refine your approach.

Then, rinse and repeat.

Frequently asked questions about UX analysis

What are ux analysis methods.

User experience (UX) analysis methods give you data about your user journey, which you can use to improve the user experience. UX analysis is generally split into two types of data:

Quantitative UX data : statistics and rankings

Qualitative UX data : anecdotes and insights

What are the best UX analysis tools?

Common UX analysis tools include:

Feedback widgets

Lab usability tests

Using a combination of these tools will give you a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. Visit the  UX tools page of this guide  for a list of more UX tools, and learn how and when to use them in your UX analysis.

What is a UX analysis checklist?

Here’s our  six-point UX analysis checklist :

Identify user issues

Organize your UX data

Look for recurring issues

Prioritize fixes

Share your findings and recommendations

Build and test new features

Previous chapter

Next chapter

The ultimate guide to conducting a UX analysis

Last updated

30 April 2024

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

When you launch a product, you want your customers to love it. 

If they experience issues while using your product, you won’t necessarily know what those problems are or where they occur. 

With a UX analysis, you can smooth out areas of friction to deliver more optimized and seamless product experiences for happy, engaged customers. 

Let’s get into everything you need to know about UX analysis, including methods, tools, and benefits. 

• What is UX analysis?

A UX analysis (or UX assessment) is an essential aspect of UX research. It’s the process of gathering data about your customers, their experiences, preferences, wants, and needs. 

A UX analysis involves deeply analyzing data from UX research to derive key insights and recommendations to improve the overall user experience. 

Conducting an analysis helps you better understand your customers and create more useful and satisfying products and services. 

An analysis helps you gain critical insights from raw data so you know precisely which product changes to make. This can boost conversion rates, improve retention, and increase referrals––great for the bottom line.

• The benefits of a UX analysis

Conducting a UX analysis has many key advantages. 

Most importantly, you’ll discover more about your customers, helping you better solve their problems. This can result in a host of benefits for the organization:

Cost reduction

Solving usability issues early on can ensure your team deals with problems that may impact conversions down the line. 

If you perform a UX analysis throughout product development and launch, you can also avoid reworks and redesigning solutions, saving your team time and money.  

Increased conversion rates

Customers want products that solve their problems, but they also want satisfying and meaningful experiences. 

If you can provide those experiences by knowing their wants and needs, your products and services are much more likely to convert. 

Increased customer loyalty

Customers are more likely to be loyal to brands that truly get them. Providing valuable products that solve customer problems will likely increase brand loyalty and retention while boosting referrals. 

Better engagement 

Users are more likely to stay engaged with products that meet their needs and wants. Developing satisfying products without friction and frustration will mean happier customers and better customer engagement. 

SEO improvements 

A UX analysis can also indirectly impact search engine optimization (SEO). If your website is simple to interact with, it reduces bounce rate, which is a positive signal for search engines. 

You can iron out things like reduced page load, mobile friendliness, and clearly structured information. These positively impact SEO rankings. 

Calculate lost revenue due to UX issues .css-5oqtrw{background:transparent;border:0;color:#0C0020;cursor:pointer;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;font-size:18px;font-weight:600;line-height:40px;outline:0;padding:0;} .css-17ofuq7{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;background:transparent;border:0;color:inherit;cursor:pointer;-webkit-flex-shrink:0;-ms-flex-negative:0;flex-shrink:0;background:transparent;border:0;color:#0C0020;cursor:pointer;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;font-size:18px;font-weight:600;line-height:40px;outline:0;padding:0;}.css-17ofuq7:disabled{opacity:0.6;pointer-events:none;} .css-7jswzl{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;display:inline-block;height:28px;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;width:28px;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-7jswzl svg{height:100%;width:100%;margin-bottom:-4px;}

Don’t leave money on the table. See how much you could save in lost revenue each year when you solve UX issues and deliver a better experience for your customers.

Value per visit

x Abandoned users

x 0 abandoned users

x $ 0 lost revenue / day

Lost revenue / year

• Who is responsible for conducting a UX analysis?

Depending on the organization's structure, conducting a UX analysis or UX assessment may involve collaboration from various team members. 

Some key roles typically involved in an analysis include: 

UX researchers

Typically, UX researchers are in charge of UX analysis and research. Researchers are highly skilled in gathering data from multiple sources. They’re also in the best position to process and analyze data for deeper insights to share with other teams for action. 

Product managers

Product managers play a crucial role in overseeing a UX analysis process and feeding key insights to relevant stakeholders. This ensures the team turns the analysis into positive actions. 

UX designers

Design teams are often closely involved in the UX analysis process. Understanding what users want can help designers create wireframes, prototypes, product concepts, and user flows that align with user expectations. 

Web analysts

Web analysts are essential to UX analysis because they can decipher key metrics, helping teams learn about the user journey. They can also monitor whether improvements are boosting key metrics. 

Once you’ve completed an analysis, you’ll generally feed product developers critical information about changes that will make products more seamless and user-friendly. These can significantly improve the user experience.

Changes may involve developers optimizing performance, enhancing features, and improving navigation or accessibility.

• When should you conduct a UX analysis?

You can perform a UX analysis at various product development and optimization stages.

The key stages where a UX analysis can be necessary include: 

It’s essential to conduct a UX analysis during product development. This can ensure you launch something satisfying and useful for your customers. 

An analysis will help you gather critical data that you can analyze for actionable insights. 

Conducting a UX assessment early on can save you time and money in the long run, preventing the need to rework or redesign products. 

Post-launch

Conducting a UX analysis once you’ve launched products is also helpful. This will help your team understand users’ reactions to your products. 

With this information, you can optimize your products to ensure they perform their best.

To respond to user feedback

When gathering feedback from users, you may discover that they want certain features or areas of friction ironed out. A UX analysis can help your team examine that feedback and whether it reflects other users' experiences. This empowers your team to make the necessary changes to improve your products.

Proactively

Routinely conducting a UX analysis is the best way to ensure that your products continually meet your customers' needs and expectations. Rather than reacting to user feedback, proactivity is often the best way to keep customers engaged and coming back for more. 

• UX analysis methods for boosted customer satisfaction 

Various UX analysis methods exist. These cohesively gather user feedback so you can properly analyze it for valuable insights. The right method depends on your project and business goals. 

Some key analysis methods include: 

An audit can provide an overview of your existing products and how users interact with them. This is important if you already have a product suite that you’d like to optimize for maximum engagement and loyalty. 

Performing an audit will help your team understand: 

How your products are performing 

Where users encounter friction 

Which improvements you can make for better products

Concept testing

For new product ideas, concept testing can help teams discover whether a product is ready for market and where to make changes to ensure it will launch successfully.

This can provide direction and identify issues early on, saving time and money in the long run.  

Heuristic evaluations

A heuristic evaluation identifies issues with a design interface. It uses a set of usability guidelines called heuretics. 

This method can provide a faster analysis and offer expert-driven standards for making improvements. However, those standards may not be relevant to your specific project. 

• 10 best UX analytics tools for user research in 2024 

Getting started with a UX analysis can be challenging and time-consuming without advanced tools. 

Many tools on the market streamline the analysis process, making gathering, storing, and analyzing data for actionable insights simpler than ever. 

Google Analytics

Google Analytics helps teams gain user data on websites and apps. This offers essential insights into user behavior throughout your digital offering. 

Google Analytics offers access to data across many areas, including webpage visits, bounce data, conversions, sources of website traffic, and user demographics. 

Real-time data and custom reports can help your team see where your website and app are performing well and where you can make key improvements. 

Hotjar offers various essential tools to help organizations uncover how users interact with websites and apps. In addition to analytics, Hotjar provides heatmap technology that tracks users through websites to understand what’s working and what isn’t.

Hotjar has a recording function that shows teams how users move through a website, their reactions, and areas of friction. This allows researchers to hear what real users think about products and digital offerings. 

Dovetail makes it simple for teams to gather, store, and analyze all customer data in one streamlined place for useful insights. 

Through visually engaging dashboards and concise summaries, translating raw data into positive actions is simpler than ever before. 

Dovetail helps teams continuously improve their products to satisfy customers and increase business success. 

Contentsquare

Contentsquare offers a range of products to help teams optimize the user experience. 

Zone-based heatmaps, customer journey analysis, error analysis, frustration scoring, and retention analysis are just a few of its tools. 

These help teams gather key data, gain essential knowledge, and use those insights to improve products. 

Otpimizely boosts experimentation success for better customer outcomes.

Through A/B testing, customer experimentation, and website personalization, the platform helps teams deliver better, more satisfying experiences for increased conversions. 

Omniconvert

Omniconvert allows teams to understand, segment, and retain customers while attracting new ones. 

Omniconvert helps businesses improve their virtual presence and boost conversion rates through optimization methods, such as A/B testing, surveys, segmentation, and personalization. 

Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics offers a suite of web analytics tools to help businesses deeply comprehend their website and app performance, user behavior, and digital marketing effectiveness. 

Some of its offerings include real-time reporting, A/B testing, customization, segmentation, and data collection and analysis. 

UserTesting 

UserTesting provides access to real people who can test your products and offer feedback, allowing you to see how users respond to new products. 

This can boost the success of the product development process, ensuring that anything you launch will satisfy customers and meet their needs. 

Through heatmaps, screen recordings, and traffic analysis, Crazy Egg helps researchers identify challenging areas in their products and make key improvements. 

Crazy Egg can help teams optimize UX experiences and boost conversion rates. 

Quantum Metric 

Quantum Metric provides key performance analytics to determine areas of concern with analytical data. This can reduce bottlenecks and decrease churn. 

Minimizing areas of frustration allows teams to optimize their product offering for boosted loyalty. 

• A UX analysis checklist

Get started with a UX analysis by following this best practice checklist to ensure the data you collect is useful and your actions make meaningful differences for your users. 

Stage 1. Data collection

Before conducting an analysis, decide where you’ll get data from. The sources of data collection should provide a cohesive picture of your products and customers while aligning with your core goals. 

You can collect data from analytics tools, customer feedback, interviews, usability testing, and more. 

Stage 2. Structuring UX insights

After gathering data, combine it with a tool like Dovetail. Using an all-in-one platform for storing and analyzing data ensures you don’t miss any important insights.

It’s helpful to tag core themes and organize data to identify core patterns and trends to gain valuable insights. 

Stage 3. Detecting major user pain points

Once you’ve structured the data effectively, it’s crucial to detect the main user pain points as a priority. You should address these areas quickly to solve the most significant issues.  

This could be friction at a shopping cart, high drop-offs on your homepage, or areas with very low conversion. 

Stage 4. Revealing recurring issues

The major user pain points may relate to recurring issues across your product offering or other recurring issues you need to resolve. 

These could relate to customer sentiment, user flows, or confusing information architecture, among others.  

Stage 5. Setting priorities

Once you’ve gained actionable insights, typically, a UX research team or product manager will prioritize the changes from most critical to nice-to-have. 

Prioritization ensures you quickly address urgent user pain points. It also ensures you allocate budgets for essential changes rather than things that won’t impact your customers.

Stage 6. Communicating UX analysis findings

You need to communicate those priorities to key stakeholders to ensure they take positive actions across the business to make those changes a reality. 

This ensures the most noteworthy insights lead to positive improvements for customers.

• UX analysis for boosted engagement, conversion, and loyalty 

While you may launch your products with the best intentions and hope your customers will love them, the data may tell another story. 

A UX analysis can help you better understand your customers and how they interact with your digital products rather than relying upon assumptions. 

The insights you gather throughout the process help your team create better and more satisfying customer experiences, ultimately boosting engagement, conversions, and loyalty. 

What is an example of UX analysis? 

Let’s imagine a pet-sitting app where the team has noticed a low conversion rate among users without a clear understanding of the underlying reasons.

UX analysis involves delving into various data sources such as customer interviews, surveys, heatmap data, and usability testing. This unveils user behavior and the product experience. 

Through this analysis, it becomes evident that users harbor concerns regarding trust in the pet-sitting process from both perspectives. 

This finding prompts strategic actions, such as: 

Enhancing privacy measures

Implementing an approval process to enhance trustworthiness for pet sitters

Establishing dedicated support channels for pet owners to address concerns promptly

What is user analysis vs task analysis? 

A user analysis involves gathering, interpreting, and synthesizing data about a target user group's characteristics, behaviors, needs, and preferences. This helps product teams design better products for them. 

Task analysis breaks complex processes into smaller chunks to ensure they are more understandable and manageable.

Should you be using a customer insights hub?

Do you want to discover previous user research faster?

Do you share your user research findings with others?

Do you analyze user research data?

Start for free today, add your research, and get to key insights faster

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A Guide to User Research Analysis

When designers perform user interviews, field observations, or usability tests, they gather tons of notes and data to help inform design decisions and recommendations. But how do they make sense of so much qualitative data? Talking to customers is great, but most people walk away feeling overwhelmed by the sense of more information than they know what to do with. Learning how to properly analyze UX research helps turn raw data into insights and action.

What Is User Research Analysis?

User research analysis is a vital part of any research process because it is the very act of making sense of what was learned so that informed recommendations can be made on behalf of customers or users.

As researchers conduct analysis, they’re spending time categorizing, classifying, and organizing the data they’ve gathered to directly inform what they’ll share as outcomes of the research and the key findings.

Why Should Researchers Spend Time on Analysis?

Our natural instinct is to believe we can remember everything we heard or saw in an interview. But following impulsive decisions made from raw notes and data can be misleading and dangerous. Recommendations based on a single data point can lead a team down the path of solving the wrong problem.

Further, doing so is simply reacting to data, not making sense of it. This can cause companies to focus on incremental improvements only and miss important opportunities to serve customers in more meaningful, innovative ways.

A great example of this is when we see teams sharing research findings like, “6 out of 10 people had difficulty signing in to our application.” On the surface, a reasonable recommendation could be to redesign the sign-in form. However, proper research analysis and finding the meaning behind what that data represents is when the real magic happens. Perhaps the reason people had trouble signing in was due to forgotten passwords. In this case, redesigning the sign in form wouldn’t necessarily solve this problem.

Performing the necessary analysis of user research data is an act of asking “why” the “6 out of 10 people had difficulty signing into the application.” Analysis transforms the research from raw data into insights and meaning.

Consider what Slack did with their sign-in process. Slack allows a user to sign in by manually typing their password or having a “magic link” sent to their email which the person simply needs to click from their inbox.  They get signed in to their Slack team and get started.

Slack offers a magic link instead of asking users to type their password.

Slack emails a magic link within seconds that saves the user typing their password.

This decision wasn’t an accident; it came from a deep understanding of a customer pain point. That deep understanding came from making sense of user research data and not simply jumping to a conclusion. Slack’s example demonstrates the power of spending time in analyzing user research data to go beyond reacting to a single observation and instead understanding why those observations occurred.

When to Do Research Analysis

Before the research begins.

Great analysis starts before research even begins. This happens by creating well-defined goals for the project, research, and product. Creating clear goals allows researchers to collect data in predefined themes to answer questions about how to meet those goals. This also allows them to create a set of tags (sometimes known as “codes”) to assign to notes and data as they conduct their research, speeding up analysis dramatically.

Before any research session begins, craft clear goals and questions that need to be answered by the research. Then brainstorm a list of tags or descriptors for each goal that will help identify notes and data that align to the goals of the research.

During the Research

Researchers often tag or code data they gather in real time. This can be done multiple ways using spreadsheets, document highlighting or even a specialized research tool like Aurelius.

When taking notes in a spreadsheet, tags can be added to individual notes in an adjacent column and later turned into a “ rainbow spreadsheet .”

For teams physically located in the same space, an affinity diagram with sticky notes on the wall works well. Here, each note can be added to an individual sticky note with top level tags or themes grouped physically together.

A student stands in front of an affinity exercise on a whiteboard. Photo via Wikimedia

There are also software tools like Aurelius that help researchers tag and organize notes as they’re taken which also makes for quick viewing and analysis of those tags later.

View of analyzing notes and tags in Aurelius.

It’s also useful for teams to have a short debrief after each research participant or session to discuss what they learned. This keeps knowledge fresh, allows the team members to summarize what they’ve learned up to that point, and often exposes new themes or tags to use in collecting data from the remaining research sessions.

When the Research Is Done

This is where most of the analysis happens. At this point researchers are reviewing all the notes they’ve taken to really figure out what patterns and insights exist. Most researchers will have a good idea of which tags, groups, and themes to focus on, especially if they’ve done a debrief after each session. It then becomes a matter of determining why those patterns and themes exist in order to create new knowledge and insight about their customers.

How to Analyze User Research

Tag notes and data as you collect it.

Tagging notes and data as they’re collected is a process of connecting those tags to research questions and the research questions back to the project or research goals. This way you can be confident in the tags and themes being created in real time. Here’s how to make the connection between tags, research questions and project goals.

Imagine the research goals for the project are:

• Increase the number of people signing up for our product free trial
• Increase the number of people going from free trial to a paid account
• Educate trial customers about the value of our product prior to signing up for a paid account

From there, research questions can be formed such as:

• “Does the website communicate the right message to share the value of a free trial?”
• “Is it easy for a new customer to sign up?”
• “Are new customers easily able to start a free trial and begin using the product?”

From those questions, we can extract topics and themes. Since we’re researching the free trial, sign up process and general usability of that process, they become clear choices for tags. Also, since the research is meant to answer a question about whether or not potential customers understand the value of our product and free trial, this too provides a clear topic and tag we can use. So, useful tags based on those questions would be:

• #free-trial
• #value-prop
• #signup-reason
• #signup-process
• #onboarding

As the team conducts the research, they can tag notes and observations according to those themes that align to the high level goals and questions for the project. All of this highly increases the ease and effectiveness of research analysis later.

Analysis After Each Session

A common user research practice is for the team to debrief after each interview, usability test, or field study to discuss what was learned or observed. Doing this while also reviewing the notes and observations helps researchers hear the same information from a new perspective.

Let’s imagine the team found the following patterns while conducting their research:

• Potential customers visited the product page, free trial sign-up page, and went back to the product page several times prior to starting a free trial.
• Some people had multiple browsers open with competitor sites pulled up while signing up for the free trial.
• Potential customers mentioned waiting for the “right time” to start their free trial on several occasions.

This may help the researchers create new tags (or codes) for remaining sessions, such as:

• #right-time
• #competitor-review
• #feature-comparison

Using these new tags adds another dimension to analysis and provides deeper meaning to patterns the team is finding. You can see how the combination of these tags and themes already begin to paint a picture of customer needs without any detailed notes!

Here are some good tips for knowing when to tag or code a note:

• It aligns directly to a project/research goal.
• The participant specifically said or implied that something is very important.
• Repetition – a thing is said or heard multiple times.
• Patterns – when certain observations are related or important to other tags and themes already established in the project goals or research.

Steps for Analyzing Research Once It’s Done

Once all the research is done, it’s time to dig in to find patterns and frequency across all the data gathered .

Step 1 – Review the notes, transcripts, and data for any relevant phrases, statements, and concepts that align to the research goals and questions.

Step 2 – Tag and code any remaining data that represents key activities, actions, concepts, statements, ideas and needs or desires from the customers who participated in the research.

Step 3 – Review those tags and codes to find relationships between them. A useful tip for this is to pay close attention to tags that have notes with multiple other tags. This often indicates a relationship between themes. Create new tags and groups where appropriate to review more specific subsets of the data. Continue this process until meaningful themes are exposed. Once that happens, ask questions like:

• Why do these patterns or themes exist?
• Why did participants say this so many times?
• Does the data help answer the research questions?
• Does the data inform ways to meet the research goals?
• Does one tag group or theme relate to another? How? Why?

Sharing Key Insights from User Research

A key insight should answer one or more of your research questions and directly inform how to meet one or more of the established business goals. When sharing key insights, be sure to make a clear connection between one of the business goals, research questions and why the key insight is relevant to both. The most effective way of turning research into action is by helping teams make a connection between key insights and business outcomes.

3 Parts to a Key Insight

There are three parts to creating a key insight from user research :

• Statement of what you learned
• Tags that describe the insight (often used from the analysis, but can also be new tags entirely)
• Supporting notes, data, and evidence that give further context to the key insight and support the statement of what was learned

A key insight from the example project might be:

“Prospective customers are worried they might not have enough time to review our product during the free trial.” #right-time #signup-process #free-trial

This represents the pattern observed of customers mentioning the “right time” to sign up for a free trial and comparing the product to competitors. It also goes beyond sharing the quantitative data that those things occurred and offers a qualitative explanation of why they happened. All of this leads to clearer recommendations and the ability for other teams to take action on the research findings.

Creating key insights from the research in this way allows for the most effective sharing and reuse later. By providing supporting notes to each insight, stakeholders and others consuming the research findings can learn more detail about each key insight if they so choose.

Next Steps for User Research Analysis

Conducting detailed analysis of user research data helps teams clearly share what was learned to provide more actionable recommendations in design and product development.

Here are some tips for making user research analysis faster and easier on upcoming projects:

• Begin the user research by creating well defined questions and goals.
• Create tags based on each goal.
• Tag research notes and data as it’s collected to speed up analysis later.
• Debrief after each research session.
• Review the data once research is finished to find patterns, frequency, and themes.
• Make statements about each pattern or theme that was uncovered, describing what it means and why it’s important (aka: create key insights).
• Share the key insights!

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The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods

UX research provides invaluable insight into product users and what they need and value. Not only will research reduce the risk of a miscalculated guess, it will uncover new opportunities for innovation.

By Miklos Philips

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

PREVIOUSLY AT

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” —Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO

User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products that are useful, easy to use, and a pleasure to engage. It’s about enhancing the entire experience people have while interacting with a product and making sure they find value, satisfaction, and delight. If a mountain peak represents that goal, employing various types of UX research is the path UX designers use to get to the top of the mountain.

User experience research is one of the most misunderstood yet critical steps in UX design. Sometimes treated as an afterthought or an unaffordable luxury, UX research, and user testing should inform every design decision.

Every product, service, or user interface designers create in the safety and comfort of their workplaces has to survive and prosper in the real world. Countless people will engage our creations in an unpredictable environment over which designers have no control. UX research is the key to grounding ideas in reality and improving the odds of success, but research can be a scary word. It may sound like money we don’t have, time we can’t spare, and expertise we have to seek.

In order to do UX research effectively—to get a clear picture of what users think and why they do what they do—e.g., to “walk a mile in the user’s shoes” as a favorite UX maxim goes, it is essential that user experience designers and product teams conduct user research often and regularly. Contingent upon time, resources, and budget, the deeper they can dive the better.

What Is UX Research?

There is a long, comprehensive list of UX design research methods employed by user researchers , but at its center is the user and how they think and behave —their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics: can be calculated and computed; focuses on numbers and mathematical calculations) and qualitative (insights: concerned with descriptions, which can be observed but cannot be computed).

Quantitative research is primarily exploratory research and is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. Some common data collection methods include various forms of surveys – online surveys , paper surveys , mobile surveys and kiosk surveys , longitudinal studies, website interceptors, online polls, and systematic observations.

This user research method may also include analytics, such as Google Analytics .

Google Analytics is part of a suite of interconnected tools that help interpret data on your site’s visitors including Data Studio , a powerful data-visualization tool, and Google Optimize, for running and analyzing dynamic A/B testing.

Quantitative data from analytics platforms should ideally be balanced with qualitative insights gathered from other UX testing methods , such as focus groups or usability testing. The analytical data will show patterns that may be useful for deciding what assumptions to test further.

Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs and practices on their terms. It can involve several different methods including contextual observation, ethnographic studies, interviews, field studies, and moderated usability tests.

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group feels that in the case of UX research, it is better to emphasize insights (qualitative research) and that although quant has some advantages, qualitative research breaks down complicated information so it’s easy to understand, and overall delivers better results more cost effectively—in other words, it is much cheaper to find and fix problems during the design phase before you start to build. Often the most important information is not quantifiable, and he goes on to suggest that “quantitative studies are often too narrow to be useful and are sometimes directly misleading.”

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron

Design research is not typical of traditional science with ethnography being its closest equivalent—effective usability is contextual and depends on a broad understanding of human behavior if it is going to work.

Nevertheless, the types of user research you can or should perform will depend on the type of site, system or app you are developing, your timeline, and your environment.

Top UX Research Methods and When to Use Them

Here are some examples of the types of user research performed at each phase of a project.

Card Sorting : Allows users to group and sort a site’s information into a logical structure that will typically drive navigation and the site’s information architecture. This helps ensure that the site structure matches the way users think.

Contextual Interviews : Enables the observation of users in their natural environment, giving you a better understanding of the way users work.

First Click Testing : A testing method focused on navigation, which can be performed on a functioning website, a prototype, or a wireframe.

Focus Groups : Moderated discussion with a group of users, allowing insight into user attitudes, ideas, and desires.

Heuristic Evaluation/Expert Review : A group of usability experts evaluating a website against a list of established guidelines .

Interviews : One-on-one discussions with users show how a particular user works. They enable you to get detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences.

Parallel Design : A design methodology that involves several designers pursuing the same effort simultaneously but independently, with the intention to combine the best aspects of each for the ultimate solution.

Personas : The creation of a representative user based on available data and user interviews. Though the personal details of the persona may be fictional, the information used to create the user type is not.

Prototyping : Allows the design team to explore ideas before implementing them by creating a mock-up of the site. A prototype can range from a paper mock-up to interactive HTML pages.

Surveys : A series of questions asked to multiple users of your website that help you learn about the people who visit your site.

System Usability Scale (SUS) : SUS is a technology-independent ten-item scale for subjective evaluation of the usability.

Task Analysis : Involves learning about user goals, including what users want to do on your website, and helps you understand the tasks that users will perform on your site.

Usability Testing : Identifies user frustrations and problems with a site through one-on-one sessions where a “real-life” user performs tasks on the site being studied.

Use Cases : Provide a description of how users use a particular feature of your website. They provide a detailed look at how users interact with the site, including the steps users take to accomplish each task.

You can do user research at all stages or whatever stage you are in currently. However, the Nielsen Norman Group advises that most of it be done during the earlier phases when it will have the biggest impact. They also suggest it’s a good idea to save some of your budget for additional research that may become necessary (or helpful) later in the project.

Here is a diagram listing recommended options that can be done as a project moves through the design stages. The process will vary, and may only include a few things on the list during each phase. The most frequently used methods are shown in bold.

Reasons for Doing UX Research

Here are three great reasons for doing user research :

To create a product that is truly relevant to users

• If you don’t have a clear understanding of your users and their mental models, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success.

To create a product that is easy and pleasurable to use

• A favorite quote from Steve Jobs: “ If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem .” If your user experience is not optimal, chances are that people will move on to another product.

To have the return on investment (ROI) of user experience design validated and be able to show:

• An improvement in performance and credibility
• Increased exposure and sales—growth in customer base
• A reduced burden on resources—more efficient work processes

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, doing user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

What Results Can I Expect from UX Research?

In the words of Mike Kuniaysky, user research is “ the process of understanding the impact of design on an audience. ”

User research has been essential to the success of behemoths like USAA and Amazon ; Joe Gebbia, CEO of Airbnb is an enthusiastic proponent, testifying that its implementation helped turn things around for the company when it was floundering as an early startup.

Some of the results generated through UX research confirm that improving the usability of a site or app will:

• Increase conversion rates
• Increase sign-ups
• Increase NPS (net promoter score)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase purchase rates
• Boost loyalty to the brand
• Reduce customer service calls

Additionally, and aside from benefiting the overall user experience, the integration of UX research into the development process can:

• Minimize development time
• Reduce production costs
• Uncover valuable insights about your audience
• Give an in-depth view into users’ mental models, pain points, and goals

User research is at the core of every exceptional user experience. As the name suggests, UX is subjective—the experience that a person goes through while using a product. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the needs and goals of potential users, the context, and their tasks which are unique for each product. By selecting appropriate UX research methods and applying them rigorously, designers can shape a product’s design and can come up with products that serve both customers and businesses more effectively.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• How to Conduct Effective UX Research: A Guide
• The Value of User Research
• UX Research Methods and the Path to User Empathy
• Design Talks: Research in Action with UX Researcher Caitria O'Neill
• Swipe Right: 3 Ways to Boost Safety in Dating App Design
• How to Avoid 5 Types of Cognitive Bias in User Research

Understanding the basics

How do you do user research in ux.

UX research includes two main types: quantitative (statistical data) and qualitative (insights that can be observed but not computed), done through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. The UX research methods used depend on the type of site, system, or app being developed.

What are UX methods?

There is a long list of methods employed by user research, but at its center is the user and how they think, behave—their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other UX methodologies.

What is the best research methodology for user experience design?

The type of UX methodology depends on the type of site, system or app being developed, its timeline, and environment. There are 2 main types: quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (insights).

What does a UX researcher do?

A user researcher removes the need for false assumptions and guesswork by using observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies to understand a user’s motivation, behavior, and needs.

Why is UX research important?

UX research will help create a product that is relevant to users and is easy and pleasurable to use while boosting a product’s ROI. Aside from these reasons, user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

• UserResearch

Miklos Philips

London, United Kingdom

Member since May 20, 2016

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What are UX analytics and why do they matter?

UserTesting

When building a digital product or experience, user experience (UX) analytics are some of the most important tools at any product team's disposal. The most effective UX analysis occurs when researchers collect both quantitative and qualitative data during their UX research . The fusion of the two types of research provides the most comprehensive overall understanding of the user journey and its points of friction. This knowledge empowers designers and developers to enhance their products, foster more user satisfaction, and promote user loyalty, which is necessary in an ever-competitive market.

Today, we'll explore UX analytics and why they're important. We'll also delve into the different types of quantitative and qualitative UX testing methods explore how each can benefit any team's product development process.

What is UX analytics?

UX analytics is the practice of tracking and analyzing user interactions with a digital product to gauge its usability and overall user experience. While collecting UX analytics, researchers assess user behaviors and other data to derive insights that can inform design improvements. UX analytics enables data-informed decision-making during  product discovery , usability testing, and iteration.

Quantitative vs. qualitative data

There are two distinct categories of research data: quantitative and qualitative . 

Quantitative research looks at numerical data and statistical analysis to investigate patterns and relationships. Focusing on measurable variables, it aims for objective, numerical findings to draw statistical inferences.

On the other side of the table, qualitative research studies non-numerical data. It seeks to understand complexities and contexts, emphasizing subjective interpretations. Qualitative research involves analyzing narratives, observations, and interviews to reveal deeper insights into user behavior, preferences, and opinions.

In an ideal world, researchers have access to both quantitative and qualitative data in their UX research . It's difficult to get  the full picture of the user experience without both. In order to explore the different types of analytics available to UX teams, we'll look at them through the lenses of both qualitative and quantitative methods. 

Qualitative research methods for UX analysis

Qualitative research methods play a crucial role in UX analysis by looking at the rich and nuanced aspects of human behavior and perception. Incorporating a mix of these qualitative research methods into UX analysis can provide a holistic understanding of users, helping design teams create products that align closely with user needs and expectations.

There are many qualitative research methods that product teams can employ as part of UX analysis. 

In-depth or unstructured one-on-one user interviews

User interviews offer direct insights into users' thoughts, motivations, and expectations. By engaging in one-on-one conversations, researchers can uncover user preferences, pain points, and patterns that may not be apparent through other methods. These interviews provide a deeper understanding of the user's context and allow researchers to ask probing questions and reveal hidden insights.

Remote usability testing

In a world increasingly dominated by all things digital, remote usability testing has gained prominence. This method involves observing users as they interact with a product or prototype from the comfort of their own environment. This not only facilitates a more natural user experience but also allows researchers to collect valuable data on real-world usage scenarios. Remote usability testing is also cost-effective and enables researchers to tap into a diverse participant pool. 

Focus groups

Focus groups bring together a varied set of participants to discuss and provide feedback on a product or design. This research method fosters group dynamics, which allows researchers to observe how users interact with each other while expressing their opinions. Focus groups are particularly useful for exploring group dynamics, social influences, and shared perspectives among users.

User feedback

User feedback is an ongoing, dynamic qualitative research method. It involves collecting input from users at various stages of product development. Researchers can collect user feedback through surveys, forms, or comments. Analyzing user feedback provides a continuous stream of insights, which can help design teams make iterative improvements based on real users' experiences.

Card sorting

In card sorting , researchers seek to understand how users mentally organize information. They ask participants to group and categorize content or features in a way that makes sense to them. This helps to identify patterns in user mental models, informing the product's information architecture and navigation structure.

Ethnographic research

Some of the most useful UX data can come from ethnographic studies , which involve immersing researchers in users' natural environment to observe and understand their behavior in context. This qualitative research method is particularly useful for gaining insights into the cultural and social aspects that influence user interactions. By studying users in their daily lives, researchers can uncover behaviors that they may find challenging to capture in a controlled setting.

Diary studies

Diary studies involve participants keeping a record of their experiences over time. This method gives researchers a longitudinal perspective, allowing them to understand how user experiences evolve and change in different contexts. Diary studies are helpful for capturing real-time insights into user behaviors and attitudes in the users' natural settings. 

Quantitative research methods for UX analysis

Quantitative research methods are instrumental in providing numerical data and statistical insights to inform UX analysis. By using some or all of these methods to take a data-informed approach, product teams can make educated decisions based on measurable outcomes.

A/B testing

Also known as split testing, A/B testing involves comparing two versions (A and B) of a product to determine which performs better in terms of user engagement or other predefined metrics. By randomly assigning users to different versions, researchers can analyze statistical data to identify changes that significantly impact user behavior. A/B testing is valuable for optimizing specific elements like call-to-action buttons, layouts, or content placement based on quantifiable results. 

Click testing

Click testing focuses on understanding user interactions with a visual interface. Researchers present participants with a screenshot or prototype, and participants indicate where they would click to perform a specific task. This method provides quantitative data on the popularity and effectiveness of different design elements, helping identify areas that may confuse users or impede their ability to complete tasks. 

User surveys

Surveys are a widely used quantitative research method for gathering feedback on a larger scale. Structured questionnaires enable researchers to collect numerical data, making it easier to analyze trends and patterns. Scales, ratings, and closed-ended questions provide measurable responses, offering insights into user satisfaction, preferences, and perceptions. Carefully designed surveys can cover a range of topics, from overall usability to specific features or issues.

Benchmarking

A  benchmark study involves comparing a product or system's performance against industry standards or competitors. This quantitative method helps establish a baseline for key performance indicators (KPIs) and allows UX researchers to measure how well their product performs relative to others. Benchmarking can include metrics such as page load times, task completion rates, or user satisfaction scores.

Web analytics

Web analytics tools are essential for tracking and analyzing user behavior on websites or digital platforms. These tools generate quantitative data on user demographics, traffic sources, popular pages, and user journeys. Metrics like bounce rates, conversion rates , and session duration offer a quantitative understanding of user engagement and design effectiveness.

Click maps provide interactive visual representations of user interactions by highlighting areas of a web page that receive the most attention or engagement. This quantitative method helps identify hotspots, indicating where users focus their attention and interact the most. Heatmaps are valuable for optimizing important element placement and understanding user scanning patterns. 

Error rates

Quantifying error occurrence is a critical element of UX analysis. Error rates provide a numeric measurement of how often users encounter mistakes or difficulties while interacting with a product. By categorizing and analyzing errors, researchers can pinpoint problematic areas in the user interface and prioritize improvements to enhance overall usability.

UserTesting's QXscore quantifies user experience by assigning a numerical score based on participant feedback. Through remote testing, it combines qualitative insights with quantitative data, offering a standardized measure of usability and satisfaction. This method streamlines analysis, providing a quick assessment of a product's general effectiveness and facilitating benchmarking against industry standards. QXscore enhances data-informed decision-making in UX design.

When it comes to UX analytics, it's a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methods that will really get the job done. From A/B testing and click testing to user interviews and ethnographic studies, a holistic approach to UX analytics can paint a fuller picture of how users interact with products. These insights help product teams to iterate and optimize their designs more efficiently.

UserTesting is the go-to for seamlessly weaving qualitative data into UX analytics, blending hard numbers with real-life context. With these comprehensive research methods in play, product teams can not only measure performance metrics with precision but also dig into the nitty-gritty of user interactions. This allows designers and others to craft designs that not only work effectively but resonate with users on an authentic human level. As the realm of UX evolves, the marriage of quantitative and qualitative approaches is shaping the way forward, where user experiences aren't just measured but deeply understood.

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UX Analytics: What They Are, and Why They Matter

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Things We Can We Do with Analytics

• UX Analytics Tools: What’s on Offer

UX Analytics vs UX Theory

Great, what now, frequently asked questions on ux analytics, 1. creating data-driven designs.

• find out where users are leaving, and why
• optimize the customer journey to reduce exit rates
• rethink visual design to aid usability and accessibility
• find out where and why the user is “rage clicking”
• boost conversations and maximize sales
• rearrange and tailor content to fit the user user intent.

2. Driving other types of user research

Ux analytics tools: what’s on offer, what are the key metrics in ux analytics.

UX analytics focuses on several key metrics to understand user behavior and improve user experience. These include click paths, which show the route users take through your site, and heat maps, which visually represent where users click, scroll, and spend time on your site. Other important metrics are conversion rates, bounce rates, and user retention rates. These metrics provide insights into how users interact with your site, where they encounter difficulties, and what aspects of your site are most engaging.

How can UX analytics improve my website’s performance?

UX analytics can significantly improve your website’s performance by identifying areas of your site that are not user-friendly. By analyzing user behavior data, you can understand where users are having difficulties or where they are dropping off. This allows you to make necessary changes to improve user experience, increase user engagement, and ultimately, boost your site’s performance.

What tools are available for UX analytics?

There are numerous tools available for UX analytics, each with its own unique features and benefits. Some popular ones include Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Smartlook. These tools provide a range of features such as heat maps, session recordings, and user behavior tracking, which can provide valuable insights into user experience on your site.

How does UX analytics differ from traditional web analytics?

While traditional web analytics focuses on quantitative data like page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates, UX analytics goes a step further by analyzing qualitative data. This includes understanding why users behave the way they do on your site, what their motivations are, and what obstacles they encounter. This deeper level of understanding can lead to more effective improvements in user experience.

How can I get started with UX analytics?

Getting started with UX analytics involves a few key steps. First, you need to define your goals and what you hope to achieve with UX analytics. Next, choose the right tools that align with your goals. Then, start collecting and analyzing data. Finally, use the insights gained to make improvements to your site.

What is the role of UX analytics in product development?

UX analytics plays a crucial role in product development. It provides insights into how users interact with your product, what features they use most, and where they encounter difficulties. These insights can guide product development decisions, helping you to create a product that meets user needs and expectations.

Can UX analytics help improve user retention?

Yes, UX analytics can significantly improve user retention. By understanding how users interact with your site and where they encounter difficulties, you can make necessary improvements to enhance user experience. A better user experience can lead to increased user satisfaction, which in turn can boost user retention.

How often should I review my UX analytics data?

The frequency of reviewing UX analytics data depends on your specific goals and the nature of your site. However, as a general rule, it’s a good idea to review your data regularly to keep up with changes in user behavior and to identify any emerging issues as early as possible.

Can UX analytics help with A/B testing?

Absolutely. UX analytics can provide valuable insights that can guide A/B testing. By understanding how users interact with different elements of your site, you can design more effective A/B tests and make more informed decisions about which version to implement.

What are some common mistakes to avoid in UX analytics?

Some common mistakes to avoid in UX analytics include not defining clear goals, not choosing the right tools, and not taking action based on the insights gained. It’s also important to avoid focusing solely on quantitative data and neglecting the qualitative insights that UX analytics can provide.

Previously, design blog editor at Toptal and SitePoint. Now Daniel advocates for better UX design alongside industry leaders such as Adobe, InVision, Marvel, Wix, Net Magazine, LogRocket, CSS-Tricks, and more.

10 Best UX Research & Analytics Tools

Sergushkin.com

Effective and innovative research and analytics tools play a key role in UX design if you want to create a uniquely positive user experience.

However, choosing the best one with many available tools takes time and effort. In this article, I’ve gathered the best UX research and analytics tools, from my point of view, that will help you understand user needs, identify problems, and create products that will delight and inspire customers.

1. User Interview Tools

User interviews are one of the most common and practical research methods for startups. It is used to understand users’ needs, preferences, behaviours and concerns about a product, app or service. The purpose of an interview is to collect qualitative data that can be used to improve user experience and optimise design.

To gather qualitative feedback, you can use tools such as:

• Calendly — it is very convenient to schedule user interviews using this platform. It is suitable for teams that hold large-scale meetings. Using this tool, you don’t have to deal with endless emailing to coordinate the time.

Free Online Appointment Scheduling Software | Calendly

Calendly is the modern scheduling platform that makes "finding time" a breeze. when connecting is easy, your teams can….

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• Zoom is a proven tool for conducting remote user interviews and usability testing sessions for apps and websites.
• Lookback is a tool that optimises the entire research process from session to publication. With chat, tagging, highlight videos, and other functionality, Lookback makes analysing your user interviews more accessible.

Turn research skeptics into research champions.

www.lookback.com

2. Research Synthesis Tools

Research Synthesis tools help UX designers organise, analyse, and extract useful insights from user research results. They can gather data from various sources, such as user interviews, questionnaires, and analytics, and transform it into understandable and informative insights for design decisions.

Best Research Synthesis Tools:

• FigJam is a handy tool for creating user patterns, visualising their experience, and creating a customer roadmap. You can record the information you need on Post-it notes, which can then be sorted so conveniently by topic to highlight the most important or summarise user research results.
• Miro is an excellent alternative to FigJam, with a broader range of tools and integration options.
• Screenapp — allows you to transcribe any audio or video in a flash. This tool also summarises all the information from the recordings using AI and creates automatic notes that you can then use to improve your project.
• Dovetail is a tool that considers customer feedback on a product, website or app so you can offer ideas to improve their experience and make more informed decisions. You can save analyses on the platform and share user research data with the team.

3. Data Analysis & Reporting Tools

Data Analysis and reporting Tools for UX designers help them analyse user research data and create informative reports for design decisions. They typically provide a wide range of functions for processing, visualising, and interpreting user behaviour and feedback data.

Typical functions and features of Data Analysis & Reporting Tools for UX designers:

1) Qualitative data analysis : tools for processing the results of user interviews, focus groups, observations and questionnaires. 2) Data Visualisation : creating graphs, charts and other visual representations of data to show trends and patterns clearly. 3) Data segmentation : segment users into groups with common characteristics to identify differences in behaviour and preferences. 4) User Path Analysis: Track and analyse users’ paths through a product or website to identify problem areas and opportunities for optimisation. 5) Reporting: Generate informative reports with critical insights and recommendations based on data analysis.

Best Data Analysis & Reporting Tools:

Google Analytics is truly an essential tool for digital products and websites. It needs no further introduction as it provides comprehensive and detailed analytics.

PostHog — a user-friendly open-source platform for analysing, testing, observing and implementing new features.

Qualtrics — allows the user to create surveys and analytics reports without prior programming knowledge.

Write what your top tools for UX research and analytics are.

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How to use MoSCoW in UX research and avoid featuritis

Eva Schicker

UsabilityGeek

UX Design Essentials: Article 11

What is MoSCoW?

MoSCoW is the acronym for a concept called M ust Have/ S hould Have/ Co uld Have/ W ould Have. This conceptual tool is used to analyze the ranking of your product’s features.

What is featuritis?

Featuritis is the condition of Too Many Product Features . This condition arises when stakeholder and/or design teams add too many buttons, clicks, turns, or knobs to their product. This leaves the consumer utterly confused and overwhelmed, and thereby unable to use the product properly.

To prioritize product features, and avoid featuritis, we use the MoSCoW analytics tool at the beginning of the product’s design phase (or towards the end of the research phase)

What is the concept of a moscow analysis.

MoSCoW is a research/design method that gives you a visual insight into how to prioritize your product’s features

MoSCoW is represented with this four-quadrant chart, each quadrant representing types of features in order of priority, in clock-wise ranking of priority:

Written by Eva Schicker

Hello. I write about UX, UI, AI, animation, tech, fiction & art through the eyes of a designer & painter. I live in NYC. Book author, UX Grad GA NYC.

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16 Best UX Research Tools in 2024: Gather Faster & Better Insights

Every second you put into UX research is important.

You have to consider many different factors, such as the right participant selection, the specific goals of your research, and the appropriate methodologies to use.

By leveraging the right UX research tools, you can reduce manual tasks and simplify your workflow. That way, you can focus on getting useful insights and using them in your designs.

This guide will dive into UX research, its critical role in design, and which research tools to use can accelerate your process.

If you are more interested in learning how to execute practical UX research in just 10 hours, check our UX research course by Michael Wong, also known as Mizko.

Why is UX research important?

Before we dive into the different research methods available, let's briefly talk about UX research and its importance.

UX research is the systematic study of user needs, wants, and goals in product design. It explores understanding how people use and experience products like websites or apps.

This includes asking users questions, watching how they use something, and gathering data to figure out what works well and what doesn't. The goal is to use this information to make products easier and more enjoyable.

So, why is UX research important ? Here's the payoff:

• Removes personal bias
• Saves time and resources
• Provides data-backed validation to your designs
• Makes it easier to gain stakeholder approval

Getting the hang of UX research isn't overnight work. It's a skill set involving user behavior, data analysis, and effective communication.

There's a lot of options available to learn about this field, from UX research courses and books to YouTube channels and podcasts.

Categories of UX research tools

These tools serve a unique purpose, from understanding users' needs and behaviors to getting the feel of the product's usability.

• Surveys and Feedback Tools : This category includes tools for creating surveys, questionnaires, and feedback forms to gather quantitative data from users. Examples are Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, and Typeform.
• Usability Testing and User Observation Tools : These tools focus on observing and analyzing how users interact with a product. They can include session recording, heatmaps, user testing platforms, and task analysis tools. Examples include UserTesting, Hotjar, and Crazy Egg.
• Analytics and Data Analysis Tools : Tools in this category are used to collect and analyze quantitative data on user behavior, such as website traffic, user flows, and engagement metrics. Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics are popular choices.
• Interview and Discussion Tools : These are used for qualitative research, such as conducting one-on-one interviews, focus groups, or remote discussions. They include video conferencing tools like Zoom and Skype.
• Information Architecture Tools : This category encompasses tools used for organizing and structuring content and information, such as card sorting and tree testing. Optimal Workshop and UserZoom are examples of tools that offer these functionalities.

Top UX research tools for 2024

Here are the UX research tools to help streamline your processes:

What is it: A video conferencing tool that allows you to do remote interviews.

Why is it useful? For easy recording and conducting user interviews. It's the #1 video meeting application, with around 60% of researchers favoring this platform for conducting moderated studies.

Helpful features:

• Chat : You can also message the participants, send them links or files, or have private discussions with team members without distracting participants.
• Annotation : This tool allows you to draw on the screen to highlight things during a session. You can save or delete these annotations.
• Closed captioning : This feature turns spoken words into text on the screen. Zoom's live transcription can also be used for this.
• Remote control : You can take control of a participant's computer (with their permission) to set up tests or assist them. This works on desktops and iPads but not on phones or browsers.
• Recording & transcripts : Record interviews and get transcripts for future reference. Have it stored on your computer or the cloud. ‍

‍ ‍ Pricing: Free for up to 40 minutes per meeting. $149.9/year for Pro and $219.9/year for Business.

What is it: A collaborative whiteboarding and brainstorming tool developed by Figma, to facilitate visual collaboration and idea sharing among teams.

Why is it useful: It enables researchers and designers to visually map out user journeys, create interactive prototypes, and collaboratively gather and organize insights.

• Collaborative whiteboarding: FigJam allows multiple users to work together in real time.
• Sticky notes and diagrams: They easily organize thoughts and findings using sticky notes and flowcharts. This is great for visualizing user feedback.
• Templates: FigJam has customizable user journey maps, personas, and wireframe templates.
• Interactive elements: Tools like voting stickers and emoji reactions enable interactive feedback sessions, making gathering consensus or highlighting key points during team discussions easier.
• Integration with design tools: Seamless integration with design tools, especially Figma, allows for a smooth transition from research to design.
• FigJam AI: The AI features in FigJam include generating templates, summarizing sticky notes and insights, rewriting content using Jambot, creating flowcharts and decision trees, and ideating concepts and flows.

For more useful FigJam hacks in UX research, watch Mizko's video below: ‍

6 SMASHING FigJam Hacks for User Research    

Pricing: Free for up 3 FigJam files. $12 per editor/month for Figma Pro, $45 per editor/month for Figma Organization, and $75 per editor/month for Enterprise.

3. Calendly

What is it: A scheduling tool for easy appointment booking and availability sharing.

Why is it useful: It streamlines the process of scheduling interviews and reduces the back-and-forth of email communication.

• Automated scheduling: Calendly automates the appointment scheduling process, eliminating the back-and-forth emails often needed to find a suitable time. Participants can choose from slots based on the UX researcher’s preset availability.
• Time zone detection: It automatically detects and adjusts for different time zones.  This is useful when interacting with participants from various geographic locations.
• Calendar integration: Calendly integrates with popular calendar services like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal. This synchronization helps UX researchers keep track of their appointments and avoid scheduling conflicts.
• Reminders and follow-ups: Automated email reminders and follow-up messages can be set up so that participants remember their appointments and provide feedback after the session.
• Multiple event types: UX researchers can create different events (like one-on-one interviews, group sessions, or usability tests) with distinct durations and availability.
• Integration with other tools: Calendly can be integrated with other tools, such as Zoom, for video conferencing to make conducting remote UX research sessions seamless.

Pricing: Free for unlimited scheduling with one event type. $12 per seat/month for Standard and $20 per seat/month for Teams.

What is it: A language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text and engage in text-based conversations

Why is it useful? It does high-level research, synthesizes large amounts of qualitative data, drafts initial survey questions, and supports user testing.

• Data synthesis and analysis: ChatGPT can handle extensive qualitative data, like interview transcripts and survey responses. It identifies crucial themes, patterns, and insights, greatly reducing the time and effort needed for data analysis.
• User personas and scenarios: It can help develop comprehensive user personas and scenarios using collected data.
• Survey questions: With its advanced language processing, ChatGPT helps UX researchers craft survey questions to effectively gather valuable user feedback.
• UX research learning tool: It acts as an informative resource for UX designers, providing information on methodologies, best practices, and trends in UX research.

Pricing: Free for ChatGPT 3.5. $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus.

5. Otter.ai

What is it: A transcription and note-taking tool that uses artificial intelligence to convert spoken words into written text.

Why is it useful? It significantly reduces the time needed to transcribe user interviews. Otter.ai also offers features for organizing and editing the transcriptions.

• Accurate transcription: Otter.ai provides real-time transcription of interviews, focus groups, and user testing sessions. This feature captures every word participants speak, so no detail is missed.
• Keyword and topic search: UX researchers can easily search transcriptions for specific keywords or topics. This makes it simpler to find and analyze relevant sections of conversations related to their research.
• Speaker identification: The tool can identify and label different speakers in a conversation. This is particularly useful in group settings or interviews with multiple participants.
• Shareable transcripts: Transcripts can be shared with team members or stakeholders. This feature allows for collective analysis and discussion of user feedback.
• Integration with other Tools: Otter.ai integrates with video conferencing tools like Zoom and Google Meet, which is beneficial for remote UX research. Transcriptions can be started directly from these platforms, streamlining the process of capturing and analyzing remote interactions.
• Audio playback with transcripts: Researchers can listen to the audio while reading the transcript. This feature is useful for understanding the context and nuances of spoken responses, such as tone and emotion, which are important in UX research.
• Highlighting and commenting: Key moments in the transcript can be highlighted, and notes or comments can be added. This helps UX researchers mark important insights or areas for follow-up.
• Export options: Transcripts can be exported in various formats for further analysis or inclusion in research reports.

Pricing: Free for up to 300 monthly transcription minutes (30 minutes per conversation). $10 per user/month for Pro and $20 per user/month for Business.

6. Google Sheets

What is it: A web-based spreadsheet application for data storage, organization, and analysis.

Why is it useful: It's a versatile tool for organizing and analyzing research data. It supports real-time collaboration, making it ideal for teams to collaborate on data analysis, regardless of location. Its ease of use and integration with other Google apps and UX tools streamline the research process.

• Data organization and analysis: Google Sheets enables researchers to organize data systematically, whether it’s user feedback, survey results, or usability test data. It supports various data types and formulas for in-depth analysis.
• Real-time collaboration: Multiple users can work on the same spreadsheet simultaneously.
• Integration with data collection tools: It seamlessly integrates with tools like Google Forms to automate collecting and organizing research data.
• Conditional formatting: This feature helps visually highlight trends, patterns, or specific data points, making it easier to derive insights from large datasets.
• Pivot tables and charts: Researchers can use pivot tables and various chart types to summarize and visualize data.
• Data import and export: Google Sheets allows for easy import and export of data in various formats, facilitating data sharing and further analysis with other software.
• Version history: This feature maintains a record of changes, allowing researchers to track edits and revert to previous versions if necessary.

Pricing: Free with limited cloud storage. $6 per user/month for Google Workspace or Business Starter, $12 per user/month for Business Standard, and $18 per user/month for Business Plus.

7. Typeform

• What is it: An online platform that enables users to create and share interactive surveys, forms, and quizzes to collect data and gather feedback.
• Why is it useful? It offers a more engaging and visually appealing way to collect user data.
• Engaging and interactive design: Its user-friendly and engaging design can lead to higher response rates, as users often find Typeform surveys more enjoyable to complete compared to traditional forms.
• Customizable templates: Typeform offers various templates, making it easy for UX researchers to create forms and surveys tailored to their specific needs quickly. These templates can be adapted to match the branding and tone of the project.
• Conditional logic and branching: It allows for creating dynamic forms with conditional logic. This means that the questions can adapt based on previous answers, which leads to a more personalized experience for respondents and more relevant data for researchers.
• Rich media integration: Images, videos, and GIFs can be added to surveys and forms. This can be particularly useful in UX research for showing respondents design mockups, prototypes, or specific scenarios.
• Detailed analytics and reporting: Typeform provides in-depth analytics and reporting features. This gives UX designers valuable insights into how respondents interact with their forms, including response rates, completion rates, and drop-off points.
• Integration with other tools: It integrates well with other tools and platforms, such as Google Sheets and various CRM systems, for efficient data management and analysis.
• Mobile-friendly design: Typeform is designed to work seamlessly across different devices, including smartphones and tablets, ensuring accessibility for a wider range of users.
• Easy data export: Data collected via Typeform can be easily exported for further analysis, allowing UX researchers to dive deeper into the findings using their preferred analytical tools.

Pricing: Free for up to 10 responses per month. $25/month for Basic, $50 /month for Plus, and $83/month for Business.

8. Dovetail

What is it: A comprehensive user research and customer feedback software that helps teams store, analyze, and collaborate on research data.

Why is it useful: It's a one-stop place to analyze qualitative data from user research and feedback, helping researchers organize, understand, and use the data to improve.

• Data organization and analysis: Dovetail allows researchers to manage and analyze various data forms systematically. This includes interview transcripts, survey responses, and user testing notes. Its robust analysis tools help in identifying key themes and patterns.
• Collaborative workspace: Teams can work together in real-time, sharing insights and collaborating on data analysis.
• Integration with data collection tools: Dovetail integrates with various data collection tools for a smooth transition of information into the platform for analysis.
• Interactive tagging and coding: This feature allows researchers to tag and code data, making it easier to categorize and retrieve information for thematic analysis.
• Rich media support: The platform supports various media types, including audio and video files, which can be directly analyzed within Dovetail.
• Powerful search and filtering: Users can quickly search large datasets for relevant information.
• Insight and report generation: Dovetail enables the creation of compelling reports and shares insights across the organization, enhancing communication and decision-making.
• Security and compliance: It offers robust security features and compliance with data protection regulations, ensuring that sensitive research data is securely managed.

Pricing: $30/month for a Starter plan, $375/month for Team, and $1,800/month for Business.

What is it: An advanced user testing and usability analytics platform that enables teams to conduct rapid, remote user testing and gather actionable insights.

Why is it useful: It assists designers in efficiently and effectively conducting user testing. This tool simplifies the entire process from test setup to results analysis, making it a convenient tool for those who work quickly.

• Rapid test creation: Using existing design tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD allows for the quick creation of user tests. This includes prototype, usability, and A/B tests.
• Actionable analytics: The platform provides detailed analytics on user performance and behavior, including heatmaps, click rates, and task completion times, which help identify usability issues.
• Unmoderated user testing: Maze.co specializes in remote and unmoderated user testing so that users can participate in tests conveniently. This leads to more natural interactions and diverse user feedback.
• Integrations with design tools: Seamless integration with popular design and prototyping tools ensures a smooth workflow from design to testing.
• Customizable test flows: Researchers can design test flows that mimic real-world user journeys. This provides deeper insights into user experience and behavior.
• Demographic targeting: Maze.co offers the ability to target specific user demographics for testing so that feedback is relevant and representative of the target audience.
• Instant reports: The platform generates instant, easy-to-understand reports, making sharing findings with stakeholders and team members simple.
• Collaboration tools: Maze.co supports collaboration among team members, enabling easy sharing of tests and results for collective analysis and decision-making.

Pricing: Free for individuals doing one study per month, $99 for a Starter plan, and $1,250 for a Team.

10. Optimal Workshop

What is it: A comprehensive suite of UX research tools focused on improving information architecture and user experience. It offers various services, including card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, and survey tools.

Why it is useful: It's perfect for UX professionals aiming to improve website or app structure and navigation by studying how users organize information and interact with digital products. With its focus on information architecture, Optimal Workshop is a valuable tool for creating intuitive interfaces.

• Card sorting: This tool allows researchers to understand how users group and label content, helping create logical and user-friendly content structures.
• Tree testing: Used for validating information hierarchy, tree testing helps assess the findability of items in a website or app structure.
• First-click testing: This feature analyzes where users first click when completing tasks, providing insights into initial interactions and potential navigation issues.
• Survey tools: Optimal Workshop includes survey tools to gather broader user feedback, complementing the more specific testing tools.
• Participant recruitment: The platform offers a participant recruitment service, helping researchers find the right study users.
• Data analysis and reporting: Advanced analytics and reporting features make interpreting the data easy and sharing insights with stakeholders.
• Integration with other tools: Optimal Workshop can integrate with other UX and design tools, streamlining the research process.
• Collaborative features: It supports collaboration among team members, facilitating the sharing and discussion of findings.

Pricing: Free for individuals with limited scope. $208/month for Pro, and $191/month for Team.

What is it: An intuitive, web-based analytics and feedback tool that provides insights into user behavior and motivations. It combines analysis and feedback tools to understand user experience on websites and apps comprehensively.

Why it is useful: It offers visual insights into user behavior. Hotjar also collects direct feedback to identify pain points and enhance digital products, providing a comprehensive view of the user experience.

• Heatmaps: Visual representations of user clicks, taps, and scrolling behavior, which help in understanding what users do on your site.
• Visitor recordings: Session recordings that show how users navigate and interact with your website in real time.
• Conversion funnels: Analyze users' steps on your site, identifying where users drop off.
• Form analysis: Insights into how users interact with forms, including which fields cause issues and lead to abandonment.
• Feedback polls and surveys: Tools to collect direct user feedback, providing qualitative insights into user satisfaction and needs.
• User testing recruitment: A feature for recruiting users for more in-depth testing and research.

Pricing: Free for 35 sessions. $32/month for Plus, $80/month for Business, and $171/month for Scale.

12. Miro.com

What is it: An online collaborative whiteboarding platform that allows teams to work together in real-time. It's ideal for brainstorming, planning, and designing within a shared visual workspace.

Why it is useful: It facilitates various activities from user journey mapping to sprint planning, making it invaluable for collaborative design thinking, project planning, and ideation sessions.

• Infinite canvas: A virtually unlimited workspace where teams can brainstorm, design, and map out projects.
• Pre-built templates: Ready-to-use templates for various use cases, including UX design, agile workflows, and strategy planning.
• Real-time collaboration: Teams can work synchronously, regardless of location, with live cursors and simultaneous editing.
• Integrative tools: Compatibility with various file types and integration with tools like Jira, Slack, and Google Suite.
• Interactive widgets: Tools like sticky notes, voting, and timers to facilitate interactive workshops or brainstorming sessions.
• Screen sharing and presentation mode: Features that enable easy sharing of boards and presentations with stakeholders or team members.
• Access controls and permissions: Options to manage who can view or edit boards, ensuring security and control over content.

Pricing: Free for limited capacity. $8 per member/month for Starter, and $16 per member/month for Business.

13. FullStory

What is it: A digital experience analytics platform that provides insights into user interactions on websites and mobile apps. It specializes in capturing, analyzing, and replaying user sessions.

Why it is useful: This tool assists UX researchers in understanding user behavior and finding issues in their experiences. It gives a detailed look at how users interact, making it easier to spot problems and ways to make things better. Its focus on session replay and user insights is crucial for improving user interfaces and making users happier.

• Session replay: Records and replays user sessions to provide a clear view of user interactions, helping identify usability issues.
• Heatmaps: Offers visual heatmaps showing where users click, scroll, and most engage on your site.
• Error and funnel analysis: Tracks and analyzes user errors and monitors conversion funnels to identify drop-off points.
• Segmentation and filtering: Allows detailed segmentation of user data for targeted analysis.
• Intuitive dashboards: Provides easy-to-understand dashboards for quick insights into user behavior and website performance.
• Integration with other tools: Easily integrates with other analytics, testing, and development tools.

Pricing: Has a 14-day free trial. Pricing ranges from $300-$1,000/month. Available plans include Enterprise, Advanced, and Business.

14. Mix Panel

What is it: An advanced analytics platform designed for tracking user interactions in web and mobile applications. Through in-depth data analysis, it focuses on user engagement, retention, and conversion.

Why it is useful: It aids UX researchers in monitoring user actions and gaining insights into how users interact with their digital products. The platform's emphasis on user engagement and retention metrics makes it a key tool for optimizing product strategies and user experiences.

• Event tracking: Allows tracking specific user actions and interactions within the app or website.
• Funnel analysis: Analyzes user pathways and identifies where users drop off or convert, helping optimize user flows.
• Retention analysis: Tracks how often and for how long users return to the app or website.
• Custom reports: Enables the creation of custom reports and dashboards to view key metrics.
• A/B testing: Supports A/B testing to experiment with different features or interfaces and measure their impact.
• Segmentation and cohort analysis: Provides detailed segmentation capabilities to analyze behaviors of different user groups.
• Real-time data: Offers real-time data updates for immediate insights and action.

Pricing: Free for 20M events/month. Growth plan starts at $20/month and Enterprise starts at $833/month.

15. Google Analytics

What is it: A web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. This tool helps UX researchers understand user behavior, engagement, and website conversion.

Why it is useful: This tool gauges your site's performance and understands its audience. It offers insights on how users discover and use a website. This helps make informed decisions to enhance user experience and boost engagement.

• Traffic analysis: Tracks website visitors, their sources, and their behavior on the site.
• User engagement metrics: Provides data on session duration, bounce rate, and pages per session.
• Conversion tracking: Monitors goals and conversions, essential for understanding how effectively the site meets business objectives.
• Custom reports: Users can create custom reports tailored to specific needs.
• Real-time reporting: Offers real-time data on user activity on the website.
• Audience demographics: Provides insights into the audience's demographics, interests, and more.
• Integration with other Google services: Seamlessly integrates with other Google services like Google Ads, Google Search Console, and more.

Pricing: Free for the standard version. Pricing for Google Analytics 360 varies, depending on the volume of data and specific enterprise needs.

16. PostHog

What is it: An open-source product analytics tool that provides insights into user behavior in web and mobile applications. It allows teams to analyze, visualize, and understand user data within their own infrastructure.

Why it is useful: This tool is ideal for those who want full control over their data and deeper insights into how users interact with their products. Being open-source, it offers flexibility and customization. This makes it a valuable tool for businesses with specific analytics needs or requiring high data privacy levels.

• Event-based tracking: Captures and analyzes specific user actions within the app or website.
• Funnel analysis: Tracks user journeys to see where users are converting or dropping off.
• Heatmaps and session recording: Visual tools to understand user interactions on the site.
• Custom dashboards: Allows the creation of custom dashboards for tailored analytics views.
• Cohort analysis: Analyzes behavior across different groups of users.
• Feature flagging: Enables A/B testing and feature releases directly from the platform.
• Self-hosting option: Offers the ability to self-host, giving complete control over data.

Pricing: Free for the PostHog Community version. Pricing for PostHog Cloud is based on your usage, including the number of tracked users and events.

Emerging trends in UX tools for 2024

By embracing these advancements, UX professionals can expect to drive significant improvements in their user experience projects:

Here's a look at some key trends:

1. AI integration: Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing UX tools by automating complex tasks like data analysis and pattern recognition. AI-powered tools can quickly sift through vast amounts of user data and provide precise insights and predictions about user behavior at a rapid speed. This means UX researchers can spend less time on data crunching and more on creative problem-solving.

2. Advanced analytics: UX tools are increasingly incorporating sophisticated analytics capabilities. These advanced systems go beyond basic data collection, offering deeper insights into user interactions and engagement levels. These tools allow UX researchers to uncover nuanced user behaviors and preferences. As a result, this may lead to more informed design decisions.

3. Real-time user feedback: Gathering user feedback is shifting towards real-time methods. UX tools enable instant feedback during user interactions, providing immediate insights into user experiences. This helps UX researchers make quick, on-the-spot improvements, significantly speeding up the design iteration process.

4. Enhanced collaboration features: Collaboration in UX research is becoming more seamless with tools offering better integration and communication features. These tools facilitate effective teamwork, even in remote or distributed settings.

5. Accessibility testing automation: With a growing focus on inclusive design, UX tools are incorporating automated features for accessibility testing. These tools help ensure that products are usable and accessible to a wider range of users, including those with disabilities.

6. Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) integration: Emerging UX tools are beginning to integrate VR and AR technologies. This allows UX researchers to test and validate user experiences in more immersive and interactive environments, opening new frontiers in user experience design.

7. Voice and conversational interface analysis: As voice-activated and conversational interfaces become more prevalent, UX tools adapt to analyze these interactions. This trend reflects the need to understand how users interact with voice assistants and chatbots. ‍

Streamline with tools and lead with UX research skills

While tools can be a great way to improve efficiency, they don't necessarily make you a better UX researcher.

To master UX research, you must have practical skills.

If you want to go beyond learning what tools to use but also how to plan and execute UX research confidently, Mizko's Practical UX Research & Strategy Course is the right step.

In just 10+ hours, this comprehensive course teaches you strategic problem-solving in UX research. By the end of the course, you'll shift your perspective and see bigger picture goals:

• Develop a focused research strategy that addresses core issues rather than just brainstorming ideas.
• Get equipped to conduct user interviews effectively, select the ideal participants, and craft questions that yield valuable insights.
• Use tools like customer journey maps and affinity diagrams to organize and interpret your research findings methodically.
• Improve your design proposals with thorough competitor analyses.
• Effectively prioritize key findings for clear and concise project briefs or handoffs to design teams.
• Gain a deeper understanding of how business principles influence product design and UX research.

Learn straight from Mizko, a seasoned industry leader whose impressive background includes founding a multi-million dollar agency and investing in and advising startups.

Become part of a thriving community of over 6,000 designers who have elevated their skills with this course, rated an impressive 4.9 out of 5. This program is the chosen route for UX professionals at industry leaders like Meta and Google, a testament to its practicality and impact in the UX field:

"The most impactful element has been the direct application of the learnings in my recent projects at Amazon. This hands-on experience not only enhanced my proficiency in implementing UX strategies but also bolstered my confidence in guiding, coaching, mentoring, and leading design teams." - Amazon.com UX designer Zohdi Rizvi

"I'm 100% more confident when talking to stakeholders about User Research & Strategy and the importance of why it needs to be included in the process. I also have gained such a beautiful new understanding of my users that greatly influences my designs. All of the "guesswork" that I was doing is now real, meaningful work that has stats and research behind it." - Booking.com UX/UI Designer Alyssa Durante

"I had no proper clarity of how to conduct a research in a systematically form which actually aligns to the project. Now I have a Step by Step approach from ground 0 to final synthesis." - UX/UI Designer Kaustav Das Biswas

"After completing this course, I feel so much more confident in my ability to think critically, conceptually, and practical!" - UX/UI Designer Jonathan Olivencia

That way, you'll know that your learning is grounded in practices that have proven successful in the industry.

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5 prioritization methods in ux roadmapping.

November 14, 2021 2021-11-14

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Prioritizing work into a roadmap can be daunting for UX practitioners. Prioritization methods base these important decisions on objective, relevant criteria instead of subjective opinions.

This article outlines 5 methods for prioritizing work into a UX roadmap :

• Impact–effort matrix 
• Feasibility, desirability, and viability scorecard
• RICE method
• MoSCoW analysis 

These prioritization methods can be used to prioritize a variety of “items,” ranging from research questions, user segments, and features to ideas, and tasks. This article focuses on using these methods within the context of roadmapping—prioritizing problems that need to be solved into a strategic timeline. 

In This Article:

1. impact–effort matrix, 2. feasibility, desirability, and viability scorecard , 3. rice method, 4. moscow analysis, 5. kano model, 1.a. overview.

An impact–effort matrix is a 2D-visual that plots relative user value against implementation complexity. Variations of this matrix are used across various product-development approaches, including Six Sigma, design thinking, and Agile.

The resulting matrix captures the relative effort necessary to implement candidate features and their impact on the users. It can be subdivided into four quadrants: 

• Quick wins include low-effort, high-impact items that are worth pursuing. 
• Big bets include high-effort, high-value items; they should be carefully planned and prototyped, and, if executed, are likely to be differentiators against competitors. 
• Money pit includes low-impact, high-effort items that are not worth the business investment; there are better places to spend time and resources. 
• Fill-ins comprise low-effort, low-impact items that may be easy to implement but may not be worth the effort as their value is minimal. 

A comparative matrix is a malleable tool. While we discuss impact–effort matrices in this article, you can easily replace each axis with other criteria or use multiple matrices to assess more than two criteria. When setting up multiple matrices, set up your axes so that the Quick Wins (or whatever the equivalent best-outcome quadrant is) is positioned in the same spot (for example, always in the bottom left position), in order to easily compare several matrices and identify the items that consistently fall in best-outcome quadrant. 

1.B. Criteria

This prioritization method uses two primary criteria to rank features that are considered for implementation: the impact that the feature will have on the end user and the effort required to implement that feature. 

• Impact is the value the item will bring to the end user. The level of impact an item will have on end users depends on the users’ need, their alternatives, and the severity of the pain point the item solves.
• Effort is the amount of labor and resources required to solve the problem. The more technically complex the item, the higher effort it will require.

1.C. Process

Items are gathered on a whiteboard and their relative scores on the impact and effort dimensions are established through voting. Team members are given colored dots (one color per dimension) to vote for those items that they consider to rate highly on one or both dimensions.  

A general rule of thumb is that the number of votes per person is half the number of items being prioritized. It’s also possible that certain team members vote on a single dimension, according to their expertise — for example, UX professionals may rank impact, while developers may rank implementation effort.

After team members have silently voted on items, the items can be placed collaboratively on an effort–impact matrix (the x-axis represents effort, while the y-axis represents impact) according to the number of impact and effort votes received. 

Once everything is placed onto the chart, discuss the results and compare items, prioritizing those in the quick-wins and big-bets quadrants. Feel free to use the artifact as a platform for negotiation — throughout discussion with the team, it’s okay to collaboratively move items. However, at the end, there should be agreement on the final placement and the artifact should be documented and saved so it can easily be referenced in the future. 

1.D. Best for Quick, Collaborative Prioritization

An impact–effort matrix is best suited for quick, collaborative prioritizations. The method has a few advantages:

• The output is a shared visual that aligns mental models and builds common ground . 
• It is democratic — each person can express their own opinion through a vote.
• It can be done relatively quickly due to its simplicity. 

2.A. Overview

This method was developed by IDEO in the early 2000s. It ranks items based on a sum of individual scores across three criteria: feasibility, desirability, and viability. 

2.B. Criteria  

This prioritization method uses three criteria to rank items (i.e., features to be implemented):

• Feasibility : the degree to which the item can be technically built. Does the skillset and expertise exist to create this solution?
• Desirability : how much users want the item. What unique value proposition does it provide? Is the solution fundamentally needed, or are users otherwise able to accomplish their goals? 
• Viability : if the item is functionally attainable for the business.  Does pursuing the item benefit the business? What are the costs to the business and is the solution sustainable over time? 

2.C. Process

Create a table, with one row for each possible item, and columns for the 3 criteria — feasibility, desirability, and viability. Then, determine a numeric scoring scale for each criterion. In the example above, we used a numeric scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being a low score. 

Next, give each item a score across each criterion. Scoring should be as informed as possible — aim to include team members who have complementary expertise. Once each item is scored across each criterion, calculate its total score and force a rank. Sort the table from highest to lowest total score, then discuss the results with your team. 

2.D. Best for Customized Criteria 

This scorecard format is highly customizable. You can add columns to reflect criteria specific to your organization’s context and goals. You can also replace the criteria with others relevant to you. For example, the NUF Test , created by Dave Gray, uses the same scorecard format, but with New , Useful , Feasible as the criteria set. 

Another common modification is assigning weights to the different criteria — with those that are very important weighing more heavily in the final score. 

3.A. Overview

RICE is a prioritization framework developed by Intercom . It takes into account four factors: reach, impact, confidence, and effort to prioritize which features to implement.

3.B. Criteria  

This RICE method is based on scoring each item on 4 different dimensions:

• Reach : the number of users the item affects within a given time period 
• Impact : the value added to users 
• Confidence : how confident you are in your estimates of the other criteria (for example, highly confident if multiple data sources support your evaluation) 
• Effort : the amount of work necessary to implement the item 

3.C. Process

Using the RICE method is straightforward. Separate scores are assigned for each criterion, then an overall score is calculated. 

• A reach score is often estimated by looking at the number of users per time period (e.g., week, year);  ideally, this number is pulled from digital analytics or frequency metrics . 
• The impact score should reflect how much the item will increase delight or alleviate friction; it is hard to precisely calculate, and, thus, it’s usually assigned a score (for example, through voting, like in the previous methods) often on a scale from .25 (low) to 3 (high).  
• The confidence score is a percentage that represents how much you and your team trust the reach and impact scores.  100% represents high confidence, while 25% represents wild guesses. 
• The effort score is calculated as “person-months” — the amount of time it will take all team members to complete the item. For example, an item is 6 person-months if it would require 3 months of work from a designer and 1 month from 3 separate developers.  

Once you have each of the 4 criterion scores, use the formula to calculate the final score for each item: multiply the reach, impact, and confidence scores and divide the result by the effort score. Then compare, discuss, and reevaluate all the items’ scores with your team.  

3.D. Best for Technical-Oriented Teams

The RICE method works well for organizations that are more technical in nature (for example, when stakeholders are comfortable with equations or spreadsheets). The RICE method also works well when there are many items that need to be prioritized. Consider including peers with diverse domains of expertise in the RICE process and assign them the task of calculating the score for the criterion that relates to their expertise. 

4.A. Overview

MoSCoW analysis is a method for clustering items into four primary groups: Must Have , Should Have , Could Have , and Will Not Have . It was created by Dai Clegg and is used in many Agile frameworks. 

4.B. Criteria

This prioritization approach groups items into four buckets: 

• Must have : items that are vital to the product or project. Think of these as required for anything else to happen. If these items aren’t delivered, there is no point in delivering the solution at all. Without them the product won’t work, a law will be broken, or the project becomes useless. 
• Should have: items that are important to the project or context, but not absolutely mandatory. These items support core functionality (that will be painful to leave out), but the project or product will still work without them. 
• Could haves : items that are not essential, but wanted and nice to have. They have a small impact if left out. 
• Will not have: items that are not needed. They don’t present enough value and can be deprioritized or dropped. 

4.C. Process

MoSCoW analysis can be applied to an entire project (start to finish) or to a project increment (a sprint or specific time horizon). 

Begin by identifying the scope you are prioritizing items for. If your goal is to create a UX roadmap, you’ll usually have to prioritize for the first three time horizons: now (work occurring in the next 2 months), next (work occurring in the next 6 months), and future (work occurring in the next year). 

Compile the items being prioritized and give each team member 3 weighted voting dots, (one dot with a 1 on it, the next with a 2 on it, and so forth). Ask team members to assign their dots to the items they believe most important, with 3 being weighed most heavily.

Add up each item’s score based on the ranked votes (3 = 3 points and so forth). Identify the items with the highest scores and make sure that everybody in the group agrees on their importance. 

As each item is discussed and agreed upon as a Must Have , move it to a new dedicated space. Repeat this process for lower-priority items and assign them to the Should Have, Could Have , and Will Not Have groups based on their scores.

Once you have assigned each item to one of the four groups, establish the resources and bandwidth required for each group, starting with the Must Haves . Keep track of the total bandwidth and resources at your disposal, distributing and allocating your total amount across Must Haves (which should get the most resources), Should Haves (with the second most resources), and finally Could Haves (with few resources).  

There is not a clear threshold for how many items should be in each group. To determine this number, return to the goal of the prioritization activity. For example, if you are prioritizing items in a backlog, there is only time for so many tasks to be achieved in one sprint. In this scenario, all Must Haves should be easily achieved within one sprint; this constraint will limit how many items cannot be placed within this group.  

4.D. Best for Teams with Clear Time Boxes

MoSCoW is a good prioritization method for teams looking for a simplified approach (given the relatively vague prioritization criteria set) and with a clear time box identified for the work. Without a clearly scoped timeline for completing the work,  teams run the risk of overloading the Must Haves (of course, everything will feel like a Must Have if the timeline is the next two years!). 

5.A. Overview

The Kano model was published by Dr. Noriaki Kano in 1984 and is a primary prioritization method in the Six Sigma framework. Items are grouped into four categories according to user satisfaction and functionality and plotted on a 2D graph. 

5.B. Criteria 

This prioritization method uses two primary criterions to rank items: functionality and satisfaction. 

• None (-2) : the solution cannot be implemented
• Some (-1) : the solution can be partly implemented
• Basic (0) : the solution’s primary functions can be implemented, but nothing more 
• Good (1) : the solution can be implemented to an acceptable degree
• Best (2) : the solution can be implemented to its full potential 
• Frustrated (-2) : the solution causes additional hardship for the user
• Dissatisfied (-1) : the solution does not meet users’ expectations
• Neutral (0)  
• Satisfied (1) : the solution meets users’ expectations
• Delighted (2) : the solution exceeds users’ expectations

5.C. Process

Each item is first assigned a satisfaction score and a functionality score. The satisfaction score should be based on user data — for example, on existing user research or on a top-task user survey asking users to rate the importance of each feature; the functionality score can be rooted in the collective expertise of the team.  

These scores are then used to plot items onto a 2D-graph, with the x-axis corresponding to functionality and the y-axis to satisfaction. Each axis goes from -2 to 2. 

Based on their placement on their scores, items fall into one of four categories: 

• The Attractive category (often called Excitement ) are items that are likely to bring a considerable increase in user delight. A characteristic of this category is the disproportionate increase in satisfaction to functionality. Your users may not even notice their absence (because they weren’t expectations in the first place), but with good-enough implementation, user excitement can grow exponentially. The items in the Attractive are those with a satisfaction score of 0 or better. These items appear above the blue Attractive line in the Kano illustration above.
• The Performance category contains items that are utilitarian. Unlike other categories, this group grows proportionately. The more you invest in items within this category, the more customer satisfaction they are likely to prompt. The items in the Performance category have equal satisfaction and performance scores and fall on the green line in the Kano illustration above.  
• The Indifferent category contains items that users feel neutral towards — satisfaction does not significantly increase or decrease with their functionality and is always 0. Regardless of the amount of investment put into these items, users won’t care. These items are all placed on the dark blue Indifference line (which overlaps with the x-axis). 
• The Must-be category are basic items that are expected by users. Users assume these capabilities exist. They are unlikely to make customers more satisfied, but without them, customers will be disproportionately dissatisfied. Items fall into the Must-be category when their satisfaction score is 0 or worse. These are the items in the purple area of the Kano diagram, below the purple Must Be line.

Once items are assigned to groups, make sure that everybody in the team agrees with the assignment. Items with scores of (0,0), (-2,0) and (+2,0) may initially belong to two groups. In these cases, discuss the item and ask yourself if user value will grow proportionately with your team’s investment. If the answer is yes, group the item with Performance . In cases this is false, group the item with Indifferent . 

Move items as needed, then prioritize items into your roadmap. Items in the Performance category should have the highest priority, followed by Must be , Attractive , then Indifferent . 

5.D. Best for Forcing a User-Centric Prioritization 

The Kano model is a good approach for teams who have a hard time prioritizing based on the user — often due to politics or a traditional development-driven culture. The Kano model introduces user research directly into the prioritization process and mandates discussion around user expectations.  

There are many more prioritization methods, aside from the five mentioned in this article. (It’s also easy to imagine variations on these 5.) One method is not better than another. Consider your project’s context, team culture, and success criteria when choosing a prioritization approach. 

Once you find an approach that works, don’t be afraid to iterate — adjust and adapt it to fit to your needs or appeal to your team. Involve others in this process. The best prioritization methods are ones that everyone on your team, including stakeholders, buy into. 

McBride, S. (2018). RICE: Simple prioritization for product managers. Intercom.  https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for-product-managers/

What is the Kano Model? ProductPlan.  https://www.productplan.com/glossary/kano-model/

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Making Your UX Life Easier with the MoSCoW

If you’re stuck trying to move a project forward because it seems like there are too many things to concentrate on then the MoSCoW method may help you get unstuck. It’s a prioritization technique which is easy to learn and simple to apply. It can also help you decide what’s really valuable for your UX projects before you get started on them.

There are many different prioritization techniques that can be employed on design projects but one of the simplest to use is the MoSCoW method. It’s used across all business disciplines to enable project teams to work with stakeholders to define requirements. It can also be used as a personal prioritization technique.

What Does MoSCoW Stand For?

MoSCoW is an (almost) acronym designed to reflect the four categories used by the technique to determine priorities; Must have, Should have, Could have and Would like but won’t get. The lower case “o’s” are added simply to give the acronym a pronounceable form. Occasionally, you may also see the whole phrase in block capitals MOSCOW to distinguish it from the name of the city but MoSCoW is more common.

What is the MoSCoW Method?

Experts Dai Clegg and Richard Barker proposed the method in their paper “Case Method Fast-Track: A RAD Approach” and while it was initially intended to be used with the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) it has long since been adopted throughout many areas of business. In recent times it has become very popular in the Agile and RAD (rapid application development) communities.

The MoSCoW method is most effective when it comes to prioritizing requirements in projects with either fixed or tight deadlines. It works by understanding the idea that all project requirements can be considered important but that they should be prioritized to give the biggest benefits in the fastest possible time frame.

It breaks down the requirements into four categories:

These are the requirements without which a project will fail. They MUST be delivered within the timeframe in order for anyone involved with the project to move on. In essence they make up the MVP ( Minimum Viable Product ) though it can be argued that MUST could stand for Minimum Usable SubseT too.

Should have

Should have requirements aren’t 100% necessary for delivering the project successfully but they are the “most nice to have” out of the list. They may be less time critical than “must have” or might be better held for a future release.

Could have requirements are just “nice to have” they are desirable to provide a nice user experience or customer experience but they’re not that important to the delivery of the project. They will be delivered only if there’s enough time and resources to spare to devote to them. Otherwise, they’re likely to be tabled for future releases and re-reviewed to see if they have become higher or lower priority in the interim.

These are the requirements that everyone agrees aren’t going to happen. It might be because they cost too much to implement or provide too little ROI ( Return on Investment ) for the efforts required to implement them. These are simply left to one side until they are either removed from the requirements list or become a higher priority.

The MoSCoW method provides a simple way of clarifying the priorities involved on a project. It’s most useful in time bound situations and it can be used to prioritize your own workload (usually with the buy in from a supervisor or manager if you work for someone else) as easily as it can be used for project work.

Implementing MoSCoW – A Practical Process

The easiest way to use MoSCoW is to bring together all the relevant stakeholders to the project and then:

List the requirements (on a flip chart or on a screen)

Vote on which category each requirement falls into (bearing in mind any hierarchical issues within the company itself – the CEOs vote may count for more than the votes of everyone else in the room)

Then collate the information and ensure that each requirement is presented against the relevant category in written form so that it can be used for reference by the project team

You can repeat this exercise whenever you feel it is necessary. Priorities may change mid-project or between releases. It’s important for everyone to understand what the implications of changing priorities in the middle of a project may be in terms of costs, resources, and time.

Issues with MoSCoW

It’s important to know that the MoSCoW method isn’t without its detractors. The main flaw in the method, as identified by authors Kark Weigers and Joy Beatty in their book Software Requirements, is that the method offers no means for comparing one requirement to another. This can make it difficult for those tasked with prioritizing requirements to know which category to place them in.

The Take Away

The MoSCoW method offers a simple process for prioritizing within project delivery. It can also be used to prioritize your work load. It should be used with some caution in that it may be too simple – particularly for complex projects – but it makes for a good starting point. One of the big advantages to its simplicity is that it should be easy to get buy in from other stakeholders to put it into practice.

Check out this useful study into how the MoSCoW method is used by business analysts .

You can read about the MoSCoW method as it was originally designed in: Clegg, Dai; Barker, Richard (2004-11-09). Case Method Fast-Track: A RAD Approach. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-62432-8.

You can read Weigers and Beatty’s criticism and their suggestion for a more complex method in: Wiegers, Karl; Beatty, Joy (2013). Software Requirements. Washington, USA: Microsoft Press. pp. 320–321. ISBN 978-0-7356-7966-5.

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