10 Fantastic Remote Usability Testing Tools You Can Use Now

UXCam

Website: UXCam

Price: free version, premium & enterprise plan upon request. Try it for free.

Platforms: Android and iOS

UXCam is a quantitative and qualitative analytics solution that offers a variety of analytics methods for mobile apps only, which means it is not one of your typical mobile usability testing tools. In fact, it doesn’t even involve testers because it conveniently remotely tests the people already using your product. Don’t worry though, you can still use it as a remote user testing tool.

UXCam offers benefits that in-person usability tests do not:

1. Observe real users—no artificial lab environment needed. It's a fact that people change their behavior when being watched, so UXCam captures natural behavior without disturbing the user. You’ll get the most accurate results on how easy users find using your product.

2. Save time & money when you plan and execute tests. In-person and moderated tests take time to schedule and can grow expensive. With UXCam, you’ll get the data you need, costing you no more than your subscription.

3. Follow user journeys over weeks, not a day. Improve usability and deliver more personalized experiences by learning patterns, trends, and changes in behavior over time. 

4. Consult all relevant insights on a dashboard. Our comprehensive, AI-generated, interactive reporting dashboard lets you track KPIs and view test results. Everyone can have their questions answered at a glance through graphical representations.

It offers session recordings, which you can use to see every user interaction, besides other tools like heatmaps and conversion funnel analysis. They all help identify usability issues at a glance.

The detailed filter system helps to find specific user groups or sessions with frustration patterns.

UXCam is running in the background of your app without performance impact. Users use the app in their natural environment, which gives you real-world data, rather than data from an artificial lab experiment.

Something to keep in mind: You will not be able to conduct interviews on UXCam because it gathers and observes real-usage data. Instead of testing the usability, you get to see how good it actually is.

You can integrate UXCam into your mobile app in 5 minutes and with 2 lines of code.

“UXCam helps us to identify friction points.”

“Wish I found UXCam sooner!”

Want to know more about UXCam's features and why they’re considered the best for mobile app remote usability testing? Schedule a demo.

UserZoom

Price: contact sales for pricing information

Platforms: Android, iOS, and Web

UserZoom offers different versions of finding usability problems: remote or in the lab, moderated or unmoderated usability testing.

You can interview users while they use your app, and you can watch interviews and sessions later.

Moreover, if you’ve never done remote usability testing before — or need inspiration — UserZoom offers study templates.

Besides usability tests, UserZoom offers other analytics features such as usability benchmarking, tree testing, card testing, and surveys.

UserZoom users have described the platform as being affordable. The test creation process is easy and fun; instant access to the large test panel is a huge bonus.

However, the video editor feature could be improved with capabilities such as auto-generated clips from flagged transcripts, making it easier to search by participant.

Playbook UX

Price: starting at $267.PAYG plan available

Platforms: Android, iOS, and mobile web 

Playbook UX has a global panel covering over 40 countries, and during recruitment, you’ll have the option to localize the test platform in over 50 languages. Their AI-powered insights generate actionable insights from user feedback and interactions for quick and efficient analysis.

Gather feedback on your designs at any stage during the design cycle by conducting usability studies on your prototypes and web apps. Playbook UX supports through analysis, with the capability to generate clips from the most important moments of your user research.

Playbook UX has received some great reviews regarding excellent customer service. However, the pricing might be slightly higher than other usability testing platforms. Yet, you could avoid this by opting for the PAYG plan.

Testbirds

Price: starting at 200€ per month

Platforms: Android, iOS, Desktop, and Web

With Testbirds, it’s easy to find the right target group of participants for usability testing of your mobile app. You can test websites, wearable technology, and smart devices.

Apart from qualitative and quantitative tools, Testbirds offers other mobile analysis techniques like competitor analysis, remote evaluation, and remote interviews.

To start, define your target group. Based on this, the usability testing tool finds the right testers for you, which test your app and provide extensive qualitative feedback.

Afterward, Testbirds collects and evaluates the feedback and provides you with the data and a final report. If you're looking for UX tools as well, these are the best ones.

Testbirds supports testing across a wide range of devices, including IoT devices. It accommodates scalability, enabling product testing in different stages of development, from prototypes to fully functional.

However, this crowdtesting platform heavily relies on the tester’s environment, such as network conditions, device setup, and location, which may impact the accuracy of test results.

UserTesting

Price: starting at $267.PAYG plan available

Platforms: Android, iOS, and web

UserTesting helps you to “bring customers into every step of the process”. They offer you video, audio, and written feedback from testers within hours.

The testers are real people who are representative of your target audience, so you can get insights into how your app will be received by your target market. Testers can also provide written feedback, which can be useful for understanding their thoughts and impressions in more detail. On the platform, you can specify what you want to test and who you want to test it.

Users of UserTesting platform say that despite its bells and whistles, the UI is easy to use. One drawback would be limited control over test participants. Some participants rush through the test, impacting results.

The difference to UXCam is that the users know that they’re testing an app. You can see and hear what the users think about your app.

Trymata

Price: starting at $399 per month for SME teams

Platforms: Android, iOS, and Web

Trymata, formerly TryMyUI, delivers full-stack, remote, end-to-end usability testing tools for agencies.

One of their distinguished features—UX Crowd testing is an optional and creative way to collect valuable insights without going through lots of footage. 

Here’s how it works after a video-recorded session:

• Responses are collected from the first five participants regarding questions about your product. For example, what are two things they like and dislike about your product and ideas for improvement?

• Then, the sixth test participant onwards, will vote on the responses they strongly agree with.

• The votes are tallied as they come in, and the ideas with the most votes go to the top.

Trymata is popular because it is easy to use, and actionable test results are available quickly. One drawback of this tool is that testers get only one chance to test and provide feedback with no option to change mistakes.

Userfeel

Price: PAYE pricing starts at $30 per 60-minute unmoderated session and $60 per 60-minute moderated.

Platforms: Android, iOS, and Web

Userfeel is a PAYE testing platform with unlimited access to all their features with no subscription, monthly, or hidden upgrade fees. 

It’s considered a great platform for remote usability testing with offerings like access to 850,000 testers speaking 40 languages. Tester's comments can be translated into your native language while testing products in theirs.

With Userfeel, you can add notes, comments, and highlights to test session videos to share among your teams.

Their PAYG model is ideal for small business owners needing an inexpensive tool to conduct usability tests.

However, some users feel the screening process for test participants could be better because you only have the option to accept or reject participants. A “maybe” pile would be useful to go through later.

Optimal Workshop

Price: starting at $208 per month for one user.

Platforms: Mobile and Web

Optimal Workshop excels in information architecture testing and offers functionality for remote usability testing and user research. Its specialized tools provide insight into navigational structures and information organization within products.

Their Reframer tool is designed to support you in understanding your qualitative research, using an Affinity Map to organize ideas and data. The Theme Builder lets you dissect data to find patterns. Other tools they offer to support usability testing include tree testing, card sorting, heatmaps, and analytics.

Optimal Workshop is popular among product managers and designers because of the detailed user research analytics and visualization offered. However, users have found the limitation of screening questions to be a slight hindrance—additionally, a steep learning curve is likely for users new to such tools.

Userlytics

Price: customized price plans based on budget

Platforms: Android, iOS, desktop, and mobile web

Userlytics provides access to your ideal test users from one of the largest proprietary panels with over 2 million participants. 

They ensure your experience using the platform is the best with a simplified onboarding process, taking you through registration to your first usability test. You’ll have a session with a dedicated account manager, lasting one hour minimum. And receive recommendations, help design a test plan, and assistance in moderating sessions through senior UX consultants.

Userlytics is compatible with prototypes built in Figma, Adobe XD, Framer, Sketch, and InVision. They offer sentiment analysis and invisible observers for moderated tests.

Some complain that the 24-hour results turnaround is slow compared to other platforms. Occasionally, low-quality test participants are provided, but this is usually quickly rectified.

Lookback

Price: starting at $49 per month

Platforms: iOS and Android, mobile and web

Lookback is another candidate in our list of remote user testing platforms and offers three different types of usability testing:

• Live and moderated user testing: The tests run in real-time. You can see the participants and their screens and hear what they think about your app.

• Unmoderated user testing: The participants start the test by clicking on a link. The user testing software guides them through the test while they complete tasks.

• In-person user testing: This type of testing can only be used when participants use your devices in the lab. It allows you to record everything on the devices without the need for complicated equipment or further software.

They support collaborative analysis with features that allow team members to go through sessions together, share notes, and tag key moments during sessions. It integrates well with platforms like Slack and Trello for seamless workflow integration.

Some users mention problems with test participants having problems using the plug-in and getting into sessions, while others experience no difficulties at all.

Both UXCam and Lookback can be useful tools for understanding user behavior and improving your mobile app,  but as mentioned but they offer different types of insights and functionality.

Conclusion

The listed tools are in no particular order. They offer different functionalities and analysis methods.

On the one hand, there are remote usability testing software and tools where users know that they are testing an app.

This has the advantage that you can ask them questions and record what they say about your app. But it is still a testing situation where users don’t act as they would in real life.

On the other hand, there are tools like UXCam. Want to speak to someone about it and have all your questions answered? Request a free demo.

UXCam records the users’ behavior in their natural environment. All the captured data is made anonymous and shown via session replays and heatmaps, among others. Even though you can’t ask the user any questions, they won’t be in a testing situation and will act naturally, which is even more valuable for product managers and UX researchers alike.

There is nothing better to improve the user experience than knowing what your users are actually experiencing when they use your product. This is user research done right.

All in all, you should try different solutions and find out what kind of usability testing tool has the most advantages for you. Test a few of them out by using a free version or a free trial.

P.S. You can start a risk-free trial for UXCam here

Need to up your user journey mapping game? Enjoy our complete guide with examples and free templates.

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