Crafting an exceptional user experience requires a deep understanding of your audience, their needs, and the challenges they face. This knowledge is the base of UX research, a vital step in the design process. Understanding your research participants is key to shaping impactful product designs and getting valuable user insights.
UX research platforms help researchers and designers collect and analyze essential data and user feedback. This article will introduce you to 10+ best UX research tools to boost your business. Moreover, you will discover our helpful insights for a streamlined UX research process, highlighting the main purposes of integrating this research into your workflow.
Why do you need UX research?
When a product is already available, UX research observes how users react, feel, and interact with it, focusing on their emotions and actions. If there's no product yet, the goal is to understand people's expectations for the future product.
💡UX research aims to understand user experiences and expectations to guide product development.
Every UX process always starts with research, involving user interviews, surveys, and data analysis to understand user expectations and critical points. In this context, UX research plays a crucial role, helping developers gain insights into user preferences. Below, you will explore why we need UX research and how it contributes to successful product development:
Benefits of UX research
👉🏼Understanding user needs: User research is crucial in the design process as it helps professionals understand what users need and expect from a service. By conducting interviews, surveys, and other activities, developers can uncover valuable insights into user preferences and requirements.
👉🏼Crafting user-friendly interfaces: The insights gained from research help create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. It ensures the final product aligns seamlessly with user expectations, building a positive user experience.
👉🏼Solving existing product issues: UX research plays a crucial role in addressing problems within existing products. By exploring user feedback and experiences, research helps uncover these issues, guiding improvements and optimizations.
👉🏼Saving time and money: User research prevents unnecessary investments in useless features. It ensures a streamlined design process, leading to significant long-term savings in both time and budget.
👉🏼Improving user experience: Using user research tools to create a better user experience, you make sure that a product meets user needs. This focus on customer satisfaction provides the overall success of the product.
10+ Essential tools for UX research to boost power
UX professionals need proper research tools to achieve excellent results in their work process. Each tool serves specific purposes, so using them correctly for effective product development is important. Knowing when and how to use these tools is like having a well-equipped toolbox for every UX researcher.
Some tools delve into user thoughts and emotions using qualitative methods like interviews and surveys. In contrast, others focus on gathering measurable data for objective insights into user behavior, such as click frequencies and task completion times. Since you know the research purposes and different research methods, you are ready to explore our top 10+ UX research services for a seamless work process:
1. forms.app
The home page of forms.app
forms.app is a valuable tool for building web forms, surveys, and quizzes. With this platform, you can craft various tests and create UX surveys for your better product development process. Its user-friendly interface and excellent features make it an essential asset for gathering valuable insights and user feedback.
Highlights
- Simple, intuitive interface
- More than 5000 pre-made templates
- Has an excellent product feedback survey template
- Innovative AI-powered features
- Integrates with many platforms like Slack, WordPress, and GoogleSheets
- Providing mobile app
💡Best known for being a perfect survey tool for UX research and other research purposes.
forms.app pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Basic Plan: $25 per month
- Pro Plan: $35 per month
- Premium Plan: $99 per month
2. Optimal Workshop
The home page of Optimal Workshop
Optimal Workshop is an all-in-one user research platform with many great tools, including card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, surveys, and qualitative research features. The platform's ability to show participant responses in real time and offer data visualizations through a dashboard makes it helpful for UX professionals to optimize their research processes.
Highlights
- A single platform with multiple tools
- Showing responses in real-time
- Participant recruitment feature (accessible in over 70 languages)
- Information architecture testing
💡Best known for being a versatile toolbox of usability testing tools for performing user research.
Optimal Workshop pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Pro Plan: $249 per month
- Team Plan: $249/user per month (Up to 5 users)
- Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing
3. Maze
The home page of Maze
Maze is a user-friendly tool designed to streamline product development, catering to user-centric product companies engaged in user interviews and usability tests. Ideal for product designers and UX researchers, the Maze platform supports various testing methods, such as card sorting to test your product’s information architecture, prototype testing on real users, and more.
Highlights
- Research and user testing from anywhere in the world
- User-friendly interface
- Collection of both qualitative and quantitative data
- Integrates with tools like Figma and Sketch
💡Best known for its user-friendly platform for user-centric product teams to manage user interviews and usability tests.
Maze pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Starter: $99 per month
- Team: Custom pricing
- Organization: Custom pricing
4. Hotjar
The home page of Hotjar
Hotjar is a remote user research tool that empowers businesses to understand and enhance user experiences on their websites or products. This powerful behavior analytics service has features like heatmaps, screen recordings, user feedback widgets, and surveys. Hotjar is an excellent solution for businesses seeking to optimize their online platforms by gaining deep insights into user preferences.
Highlights
- Offering insights into clicks, moves, and scrolls
- Screen recordings feature
- Insights into user sentiments and opinions
- Providing instant notifications
💡Best known for its effective suite of behavior analytics features.
Hotjar pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Plus: $39 per month
- Business: $69 per month
5. Ethnio
The home page of Ethnio
If you are looking for a platform for recruiting participants, we have a perfect solution. Ethnio is a user research CRM designed to streamline the participant selection process for user research. Ethnio makes finding the right participants for UX research easy by offering features like screeners and intercepts. It simplifies communication with users and includes tools for seamless rewards, making it a valuable asset for UX research.
Highlights
- Finding the right participants for UX research
- Instant and varied payment options
- Screeners to filter and select participants
- Features for automated 1:1 or group interviews
💡Best known for simplifying participant recruitment in UX research.
Ethnio pricing
Has a free 14-day trial ✅
- Starter: $15 per month
- Plus: $49 per month
- Pro: $99 per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
6. Lookback
The home page of Lookback
Lookback is an amazing user research tool that facilitates live interviews with users, improved by live screen recordings for more insights and better communication. Whether it's remote or in-person, this tool provides a versatile online space for usability testing and interviewing. Lookback is valuable for collecting valuable insights on products, websites, or prototypes.
Highlights
- Live interviews with users
- Screen recording feature
- Moderated and unmoderated testing sessions
- Remote and in-person research
- Live note-taking during sessions
💡Best known for being an ideal tool for gathering product feedback through user interviews.
Lookback pricing
Billed annually only
- Freelance: $25 per month (includes 60-day free trial)
- Team: $149 per month (includes 60-day free trial)
- Insights Hub: $344 per month (includes 60-day free trial)
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
7. Evernote
The home page of Evernote
Effective management and documentation of results and insights play a crucial role in the UX research process. Evernote is a versatile note-taking app designed to create, organize, and sync seamlessly across various devices. With features like text notes, checklists, and to-do lists, it enhances user-friendly note management. Also, Evernote enables offline access and document scanning, providing flexibility in accessing information.
Highlights
- User-friendly interface
- Offline access
- Text notes, checklists, and to-do lists
- Document scanning feature
- Capturing and organizing ideas
💡Best known for providing an effective documentation solution for UX research insights.
Evernote pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Personal: $14.99 per month
- Professional: $17.99 per month
- Teams: $24.99/user per month
8. Otter.ai
The home page of Otter.ai
Otter.ai is a leading voice-to-text transcription software that provides AI features for accurate transcription. It offers a range of features, including a mobile app for on-the-go recording, the ability to transcribe uploaded audio or video files, and automated transcription during video meetings. Otter.ai is a valuable tool for UX research, making qualitative data analysis more accessible by transcribing audio files.
Highlights
- Transcriptions with an accuracy range of 85% to 95%
- Powerful AI features
- Optimized text display
- Seamless navigation between audio and text
- Security of sensitive information
💡Best known for providing accurate and efficient transcriptions.
Otter.ai pricing
- Free plan ✅
- Pro: $16.99/user per month
- Business: $30/user per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
9. UX Myths
The home page of UX Myths
UX Myths is a valuable platform for both product designers and UX researchers, aiming to show common misconceptions in UX design. The platform provides insights that help researchers and designers enhance their understanding, fostering a more informed and evidence-driven approach to UX design. It is an educational tool that contributes to improving professionals in the UX research field.
Highlights
- Valuable insights into various aspects
- Research data, facts, quotes, and articles from industry experts
- Evidence-based insights to dispel false beliefs
💡Best known for being a perfect educational tool for UX researchers.
UX Myths pricing
This platform is completely free.✅
10. Who Can Use
The home page of Who Can Use
The Who Can Use platform is a free UX research tool that helps assess how color contrast impacts people with visual impairments. It evaluates colors' contrast and makes simulations of different impairments. This tool is particularly valuable for the design part of UX research, enhancing user understanding and engaging in the user experience.
Highlights
- Shows how color contrast affects people and who it can affect
- Providing a more empathetic perspective
- Considers factors like color contrast, text size, and text weight
- Contributing to education and awareness in UX research
💡Best known for being a helpful tool for UX researchers, contributing to web accessibility awareness.
Who Can Use pricing
This platform is completely free.✅
Final words
In summary, selecting the right UX research platform is vital for achieving successful and impactful product development. Understanding your audience, their needs, and the tools introduced in this article play a crucial role in collecting and analyzing essential data.
This article highlighted the benefits of doing UX research and using results for your business's success. We also showed you 10+ best tools for UX research, which you can start using right now. Integrating these platforms into your workflow will streamline the research process and ensure a more focused and effective work journey.
Yulia is a content writer at forms.app. She has skills in advertising and translating. Using her knowledge in these departments, she researches marketing topics and creates articles. Yulia loves to travel, learn different languages, and explore new things. Her expertise lies in the best tools and marketing.
