UserTesting.com

What is UserTesting Human Insight Platform

UserTesting Human Insight Platform is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that helps businesses get on-demand feedback from real people. Its core purpose is to provide companies with human insights to improve their products, services, marketing, and overall customer experience. The platform allows organizations to see and hear the experiences of their target audience as they interact with websites, mobile apps, prototypes, and other digital assets. Founded in 2007 by Darrell Benatar and Dave Garr, UserTesting has become a key tool for UX researchers, product managers, designers, and marketers. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and serves a global customer base, including many Fortune 500 companies.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform Features

UserTesting offers a robust set of features designed to gather and analyze customer feedback efficiently.

• Global Participant Network: Access a large and diverse panel of test participants from around the world. You can filter participants based on demographics, location, device type, and other specific criteria to match your target audience.
• Comprehensive Testing Capabilities: Test a wide variety of assets, including websites, mobile apps, prototypes, ad creatives, and real-world experiences. This flexibility supports different stages of the product development lifecycle.
• Live Conversations: Conduct one-on-one, real-time moderated interviews with participants to ask follow-up questions and dig deeper into their thoughts and behaviors.
• AI-Powered Insights: The platform uses artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe interviews, generate sentiment analysis, and identify key themes and patterns from hours of video feedback, saving researchers significant time.
• Highlight Reels and Reports: Easily create video clips of important moments from user sessions. These highlight reels can be compiled into reports and shared with stakeholders to demonstrate user issues and support data-driven decisions.
• Templates and Test Plans: Use pre-built test templates for common research scenarios like usability testing, preference testing, or competitor analysis to launch studies quickly.
• Integrations: Connect UserTesting with other tools in your workflow, such as Slack, Jira, and Trello, to streamline the process of sharing insights and creating action items.
• Customer Journey Mapping: Understand the end-to-end customer experience by testing multiple touchpoints and interactions across different channels.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform Pricing Plans

UserTesting provides customized pricing plans based on the needs of different organizations. The pricing is not publicly listed and requires contacting their sales team for a quote. The plans are typically structured in tiers:

• Essentials Plan: Designed for individuals or small teams who are new to user research. This plan usually includes a set number of tests and access to the core features for unmoderated testing.
• Advanced Plan: Aimed at growing teams and companies that need to conduct research more frequently. It offers more testing capacity, advanced features like live conversations, and greater collaboration tools.
• Ultimate Plan: A comprehensive solution for large enterprises. This tier provides full access to the platform's capabilities, advanced security features, dedicated support, and professional services to help scale research across the organization.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform Free Plan

UserTesting does not offer a perpetual free plan. However, they provide a free trial for prospective customers. The trial allows you to run a limited number of tests with a select group of participants from their panel. This gives you a chance to experience the platform's core functionality, from creating a test to analyzing the video feedback, before committing to a paid subscription. To access the trial, you typically need to request a demo through their website.

How to use UserTesting Human Insight Platform

Getting started with UserTesting involves a straightforward workflow to gather valuable user feedback.

1. Create a Test Plan: Begin by defining your research goals. Decide what you want to test (e.g., a website, a prototype) and what you want to learn. Write a series of tasks and questions for participants to follow.
2. Choose Your Audience: Select the right participants for your test. You can use UserTesting's global panel and apply demographic filters (age, income, location, etc.) and screener questions to find your ideal users. You can also invite your own customers to participate.
3. Launch the Test: Once your test plan and audience are set, you launch the study. UserTesting sends your test to the selected participants.
4. Receive Feedback Quickly: Participants record their screen and voice as they complete the tasks, providing think-aloud feedback. You typically start receiving video results within a few hours.
5. Analyze and Share Insights: Watch the video recordings to understand the user experience. Use the platform's tools to take notes, analyze sentiment, and create video clips of key moments. Compile these clips into a highlight reel to share with your team and stakeholders.

Pros and Cons of UserTesting Human Insight Platform

Pros

• Fast Results: Get feedback from users in hours, not weeks, which helps in agile development environments.
• Large Participant Panel: Access to a vast and diverse global network of testers makes it easy to find specific user segments.
• Rich, Qualitative Data: Video recordings of users thinking aloud provide deep insights into the 'why' behind their actions.
• Powerful Analysis Tools: AI-powered features like transcriptions and sentiment analysis speed up the analysis process.
• Versatile Testing Options: Supports both unmoderated and moderated testing across various devices and assets.

Cons

• High Cost: The subscription can be expensive, making it less accessible for startups and small businesses.
• Participant Quality: While generally good, some participants can be 'professional testers' who may not always represent genuine users.
• Learning Curve: Creating effective test plans and screener questions requires some knowledge of UX research principles to get the best results.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform integrations

UserTesting integrates with several popular tools to help teams incorporate human insight into their daily workflows.

• Slack: Get notifications and share video clips directly in your Slack channels.
• Jira: Create Jira issues directly from UserTesting insights to quickly add bugs and feature requests to your development backlog.
• Trello: Send insights and video clips to Trello cards to manage feedback within your project boards.
• Adobe XD: Test Adobe XD prototypes to get feedback on designs before development.
• Figma: Seamlessly test Figma prototypes with users to validate design concepts.
• Qualtrics: Combine the operational data from Qualtrics with the human insight from UserTesting for a more complete picture of the customer experience.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform Alternatives

1. Lookback: A strong alternative focused on live, moderated user interviews and session recordings. It is often praised for its simple setup for live testing.
2. Maze: Specializes in rapid, unmoderated testing for prototypes and websites. It integrates deeply with design tools like Figma and is popular with product design teams for quantitative usability metrics.
3. dscout: Focuses on remote qualitative research through mobile 'diary studies'. It allows researchers to collect in-context feedback over time through video, photo, and text entries from participants' smartphones.
4. Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub): A platform for quick, simple usability tests like first-click tests, five-second tests, and design preference tests. It is more affordable and suited for getting fast, quantitative feedback on specific design elements.
5. UserZoom: An enterprise-level UX insights platform that offers a wide range of research methods, including usability testing, surveys, and card sorting. It is a direct competitor with a strong focus on large organizations.

UserTesting Human Insight Platform API

Yes, UserTesting provides a developer API that allows organizations to automate and integrate the platform's capabilities into their own systems. The API can be used to programmatically launch tests, manage participant recruitment, and retrieve test data and video links.

To get an API key, you typically need to be on an enterprise-level plan. The key can be generated within the settings of your UserTesting account. You should consult their developer documentation or contact their support team for specific instructions.

Here is a generic Python code example of how you might make a request to the UserTesting API:

import requests

# Your API credentials
api_token = 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' # This is a secret key
base_url = 'https://api.usertesting.com/v1/'

headers = {
    'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_token}',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

# Example: Get a list of tests in your account
response = requests.get(f'{base_url}tests', headers=headers)

if response.status_code == 200:
    tests = response.json()
    print(tests)
else:
    print(f'Error: {response.status_code}')
    print(response.text)

UserTesting Human Insight Platform Affiliate program

UserTesting does not have a public-facing, traditional affiliate program where individuals can sign up and earn commissions for referrals. Instead, they offer a Partner Program for businesses and agencies that want to collaborate more formally. This program is designed for consulting firms, technology partners, and other organizations that can build services or integrations around the UserTesting platform. If you are interested in becoming a partner, you should contact their partnership team directly through their website for more information on the requirements and benefits. For individuals looking to earn money, UserTesting offers a program to become a test participant, but this is separate from a software affiliate program.