Looking for remote usability testing tools? In the last couple of years, the market of usability testing tools has started to show promise. Whether you are a tech entrepreneur or a researcher working with a large corporation, the adoption and regular usage of such tools is on the rise. Each of these tools come with their specific features and benefits. 

We spend hundreds of hours of research with several researchers speaking about their needs and preferences for user research and usability testing. We do not receive compensation from any of the usability testing tools. 

Here are the 5 remote usability testing tools which we have shortlisted and you can consider while making your purchase decision. When you’re just getting started with usability testing, choosing a usability testing tool is an essential part of your existing process. The tool you’ll need to use, if any, depends on the type of usability testing you’re planning to run, and the usability testing method that you’ll be using to conduct the sessions.

It is not necessary to opt for a tool while conducting physical testing but when it comes to conducting the tests remotely then you should consider investing in a tool because that will speed up by helping you in getting faster results. 

What is a usability testing tool? 

Usually cloud-based, the Usability testing tools are solutions to streamline the usability testing process and gather data or actionable insights into how people perceive and experience your product. They can help you put your prototype or website in front of real users, allowing you to check how they accomplish a given task and identify possible points of frustrations. Data-informed decisions help increase chances of product success to deliver an optimum user experience.

Top 5 Usability tools for optimizing your customer’s experience

UXArmy

When Designers design interfaces, bias in terms of their preferences is natural. To get actual user feedback on how usable your website or app is, you need an actual usability testing tool like UXArmy. 

UXArmy platform collects qualitative and quantitative feedback and brings them to your desk in the form of Screen Interaction Videos, Voice, Survey questions, intuitive and interactive graphic visualisations. 

Through the UXArmy platform, people can remotely provide feedback on user friendliness and ease-of-use of your interactive Figma design prototypes, mobile Apps or website. 

The platform enables you to gather user feedback fast and in a cost-effective manner. It offers a range of solutions like Remote Unmoderated usability testing, Remote Moderated Usability testing, Remote Card Sorting, Remote Tree Testing and recruitment services. UXArmy also offers a panel of 25000+ verified testers so that you can choose the testers matching your target audience.

Pricing: Free trial of UXArmy is available. To check out more details about its pricing click here

Usertesting.com

Being one of the first movers in the UX tools market, Usertesting.com offers a set of customer experience solutions for designers, product managers, marketers, and executives. They have a large panel in the US, India, UK and Europe. Their platform lets you interact with customers as they interact with digital products or real life experiences.

The researchers we spoke to from the US and other western countries, usertesting.com has the fastest turnaround time from their user panel. Insight Core is a toolkit for building and managing custom user research and tests. UserTesting offers different features, such as Product Insights, which offers pre-formatted tests and same-day video interviews designed to get you real customer feedback, fast. 

Pricing: Prices for Individual and Enterprise Solutions are available upon request, but you can request for a Trial to see if usertesting.com is a good fit for you

UserZoom

Similar to usertesting.com, UserZoom has been the front runner in the usability testing platforms starting in early part of this century. UserZoom also offers a low cost version of UserZoom called UserZoom Go (Formerly Validately). The UserZoom platform has evolved to become a comprehensive Insights management platform to handle large volumes of user research. Forrester Research conducted a Total Economic Impact study and examined the potential return on investment enterprises can realize by deploying UserZoom and increasing their focus on UX Research to be over 500% ROI and return of over 2 million USD in benefits.

UserZoom is focussed on large organizations which have large UX teams and use research at scale in various departments of the organization.

Offering includes Usability testing, Interviews, Surveys, Live intercept, Click testing, Tree testing, Card sorting and Participant recruiting.

Pricing: For individuals and small businesses, UserZoom Go plans are available at $500/mo, Billed annually. Free trial is available.

Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop offers a suite of tools with focus on information architecture (IA) tests. By far it’s regarded as the most mature tool when it comes to information architecture. Researchers and designers use Optimal Workshop to benchmark and test how users find the information they need on web pages or mobile apps. Its feature-set includes tools for card sorting, tree testing and first-click testing. Optimal workshop is best suited for its card sort and tree test features. It has built a standard of reporting which is almost unmatched in the industry at this time.

Pricing: The free plan lets you explore all of the functions of the Optimal Workshop tools, and the paid plans start at $99 per month, per user.

Maze 

Maze is a rapid testing platform that is on a mission to democratize research. Focussed on quantitative usability metrics, Maze comes across as designer friendly. Maze can import prototypes from Adobe XD, Figma, InVision, Marvel, or Sketch and also allows you to import an existing prototype.

With Maze, test results can be shared using links. Its usability testing solution includes several features: path analysis, heatmaps, and more. Basic versions of Card Sorts and Tree Tests can also be included in Maze tests. ​​Maze generates a very good looking usability test report instantly for each test.

Maze Discovery is inclined to the marketing side, allowing to run online surveys, and collect user feedback.

Pricing: The free plan allows you to run one usability testing project, and paid plans are available at $25 per user/month.

Conclusion

As the saying goes – A Tool is Only as Good as its User! The right tool is the one that does what it is supposed to do, makes you efficient in what you do and integrates well with your processes.

In addition, selecting the right tool is also affected by factors such as quality of support, after sales service as well. Most importantly, the tool you select must grow with your growing needs. We suggest that you first try the available tools before choosing the tool you want to live with. To know about 8 other tools that can help you with you usability study click here and to try the freemium version of UXArmy click here