Optimal Workshop vs. Sketch

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimal Workshop
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Optimal Workshop, a company in New Zealand, offers their suite of user research tools on a subscription basis, including the Treejack information architecture tool, OptimalSort card sorting test, Chalkmark first-click testing, and other tools.
$191
per month per user
Sketch
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Sketch is a visual design tool of use for application prototyping, coming with a wide variety of extensions, plugins, and an active user community.N/A
Pricing
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Editions & Modules
Team
$191
per month per user
Individual
$208
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThese prices are based per user, per month billed annually. For 10 users or more, please contact us directly for a quote.—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Small Businesses
Smartlook
Smartlook
Score 8.5 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(10 ratings)
6.3
(35 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(3 ratings)
9.1
(8 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimal WorkshopSketch
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimal Workshop
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.
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Bohemian Coding
It is very simple to master and has a variety of built-in tools that allows one to begin prototyping quickly, and can be powered using a variety of plugins for presentations. However, Sketch struggles with more complex designs, particularly those where animations or transitions are desired. It also isn't a good fit for agencies that use a variety of prototyping tools, as results from importing are not predictable.
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Pros
Optimal Workshop
  • The user interface is quite user friendly
  • Variety of tests
  • Access and variety of help on how to run tests, as well as educational information on which tests to run for your use case
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Bohemian Coding
  • Auto Saving your work
  • Great library of plugins to use to make the software your own
  • Easy to understand interface that is very similar to other prototyping applications
  • They have been around for 12 years so you know the support and legacy stands
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Cons
Optimal Workshop
  • 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.
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Bohemian Coding
  • Color management can be finicky. For instance, the eyedropper tool sometimes isn’t very precise.
  • It would be helpful if there was a built-in commenting system that included tagging where designers and developers could have real-time collaborative conversations about designs.
  • Sketch is only available to Mac users. This is fine internally, but an issue when working with external folks.
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Likelihood to Renew
Optimal Workshop
No answers on this topic
Bohemian Coding
Sketch is a core tool for us and the cost to keep it going with our teams is low. It provides a good alternative to other screen design tools for our team members who prefer to use it.
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Usability
Optimal Workshop
Excellent and easy platform to use. Easy to onboard new members of the team. Easy to set up tests and follow number of participants performing the test. Easy to plug into other platforms to record participants. Excellent reporting. Easy to share reports with stakeholders. Easy to recruit through platform, however the quality of participants can be better.
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Bohemian Coding
At the end of the day, it's just simple. This goes a long way in design and goes even further when your talking productivity, intuitive design and turnover rate. It's not difficult to figure something out even if it's not something your directly familiar with, i.e. if you want to export in certain file formats or change the size of the canvas, you don't have to delay your end product trying to figure it out. Similar situations took me less than 30 seconds to solve without a Google search. That's Usability.
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Support Rating
Optimal Workshop
The support has been good. No complaints. I have not needed to contact support more than 1-2 times when I was first getting set up, because the tools work well and are pretty straight forward. They do have good documentation
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Bohemian Coding
The support is relatively decent, and they are quick to respond. However, their releases are not great. Sketch could use more robust testing of their software before releases. Over the last four years, I have had many days lost while waiting for Sketch to patch issues with their releases. It's actually a running joke in our office. So, support, good. Releases in the first place? Not great.
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Alternatives Considered
Optimal Workshop
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.
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Bohemian Coding
Sketch is great for creating digital assets quickly and easily. It is simple to figure out and easy to use. It has a very clean user interface and isn't a resource hog like Adobe products tend to be. Its export feature is fantastic, generating multiple asset sizes/resolutions in one shot. For anything other than print design, Sketch is my go-to.
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Return on Investment
Optimal Workshop
  • 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.
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Bohemian Coding
  • Sketch has had a positive impact on the amount of time my team needs to spend in meetings gathering feedback. By creating screen views in Sketch and posting to our InVision projects, we're able to collect feedback without requiring multi-person meetings.
  • Sketch is an extremely affordable price point with many free and inexpensive add-on options that allow me to work the way I want without spending a lot of money on additional products.
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ScreenShots