Iterate vs. Lookback vs. Optimal

Best suited to conduct remote interviews that are moderated and facilitated by the interviewer/researcher.

Not the best if you want to do it unmoderated, there are much more sophisticated tools out there. Unfortunately, for a design research team that does both these kids of research, it can be hard to get budgets to get two softwares and hence the Unmoderated Feature can seem super undercooked and doesn’t really do the job.

Otherwise it’s a great tool

Incentivized

Optimal Workshop is great for UX testing for those with a budget to do so. This may be a little on the expensive side for smaller businesses, but definitely not anything crazy expensive. The insights that you get out of these tests are invaluable and can be the difference between launching a site and succeeding/failing.

Incentivized

• Organization of user interviews
• Sharing of interviews across the team
• Creating highlights of insights

Incentivized

• Tree Testing - it is a very simple and easy to use system, that provides the data needed from a tree test
• Card sorting - provides a system for users to participate in navigation menu layouts. We looked into several options, but this seemed very intuitive for users.

Incentivized

• Unmoderated interviews is still under cooked as a feature
• The process of how participants have to download an app to start an interview is a large friction point for us

Incentivized

• The recruitment panelists are not professional, nor do they take the tasks seriously. You are going to get a lot of bad data.
• They are HQ'd outside the US and must have a small team because the customer service is the absolute WORST I've experienced in their industry.
• They pride themselves on documentation, but when they fail to document something they blame the customer for the mistake.
• There are way too many limitations with the tool after you launch, limited integrations, and poor survey questionnaire options. The tool itself is far too basic for most sites, especially B2B.

Once you understand how the interface works, it works great, but there is a learning curve

Incentivized

I would rate Optimal Workshop's overall usability 9 out of 10 due to several key factors. Firstly, the platform has a user-friendly interface makes navigation straightforward, even for first-time users. The tools and features are well-organized, ensuring users can quickly find what they need without unnecessary complexity. Secondly, the platform is highly intuitive, meaning users can easily understand how to perform tasks without extensive guidance. This is supported by clear and concise instructions throughout the application, reducing the learning curve significantly.

Additionally, the learnability of Optimal Workshop is exceptional. New users can become proficient in a short amount of time, thanks to its well-thought-out design and helpful onboarding materials. Even more advanced features are presented in a way that feels approachable and manageable. Finally, the platform supports a seamless workflow, allowing users to focus on their research or tasks rather than struggling with the software. These qualities collectively make Optimal Workshop a reliable and efficient tool for many projects, justifying its high usability rating.

Incentivized

We’ve never had to use much of their support services since the platform is very easy to use, we have however needed to transfer ownership between team members due to people leaving or other circumstances. Under those situations, the support offered to us has been been very quick and efficient and we never had to nudge them much to get the job done.

Incentivized

Zoom was way more expensive and it o is designed to other things apart from just running qualitative interviews. It also requires a different kind of approval and different approval processes to go through when trying to get it simply for qualitative research purposes.

Lookback records, scribes, helps observe and provides a sentiment check as well in the price that it does

Incentivized

For the price as it is very convenient for first-time beginners, its intuitiveness both for the one who is designing the activities and for those who have to interact with them. The fact that it collects and gathers the data into insights of the overall responses collected by all users.

Incentivized

• It allows us to understand our customers’ problems in a very team compatible way.

Incentivized

• Optimal Workshop has had a positive impact on investigating information architecture on several websites.
• Optimal Workshop has helped investigated the labeling on several websites.
• Optimal Workshop has also support in the investigation of UX in navigations.

Incentivized