Usability testing is one of the most essential tools for determining the user experience. Here, the goal is to learn how users interact with your site. The results help discern what aspects of the site may need to be changed. For example, perhaps your site’s navigation is too confusing. Or maybe users weren’t able to complete tasks easily. No matter the problem, usability testing is crucial for improving your site or product.
Identifying and fixing design issues means your website or product makes it easier for users. Not only that, but fixing problems may also help improve conversion rates. All of these benefits come from improving the user experience.
Usability testing can be pretty taxing and time-consuming with multiple tasks. However, this is the very reason usability tools were created. They help to test your design and get relevant feedback from users.
You’ll find a broad range of usability testing tools available. We’ve put together our list of recommended tools to help you find and fix design problems quickly and efficiently.
- Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a highly popular usability testing tool and website optimisation platform. This tool offers five sub-products, including:
- Snapshots
- Recordings
- A/B Testing
- Heatmaps
- Crazy Egg Editor
The tool makes it easy to understand a user’s journey on a website. You can easily do this with Snapshots & Recordings. The visual reports and session recordings make it easier to understand how users interact with the site.
One unique feature of Crazy Egg is the Editor. The Crazy Egg Editor makes it possible to directly change the design of your site.
Pros:
- Allows tracking ad campaign traffic (which is a feature not commonly offered by usability tools)
- You can add any number of team members for free
- The basic plan starts at £75 a month, billed annually
- Crazy Egg offers a 30-day trial on each of its plans
Cons:
- The tool doesn’t offer any free plan to help you get started
- Hotjar
Hotjar is one of the most popular usability testing tools. You’ll find four subproducts, including:
- Incoming Feedback
- Visitor Recordings
- Heatmaps
- Surveys
These products combined make it fast and easy to conduct usability testing your website or app.
The Heatmaps make it easier to spot user behaviour as they interact with the site. The maps track and show moves, scrolls, and clicks. The Visitor Recordings let you see exactly how users behave by replaying recordings. Finally, the Surveys provide written feedback, and the Incoming Feedback provides visual feedback from real users.
Pros:
- Strong targeting through attributes and triggers
- Supports desktop, tablet, and mobile devices
- Offers unlimited responses for each feature
- The free plan (free forever) allows you to get started, while the Plus plan offers more insights for a small team at £28.84 a month
Cons:
- Hotjar does not offer support for remote usability testing
- Lookback
Lookback is another popular usability testing tool. This usability tool provides two features:
- LiveShare
- SelfTest
LiveShare allows you to interview users from around the world. You can also collaborate with clients and your team during the review, check tests, and make notes. LiveShare also works to record tests of in-house testers who may be on your team.
SelfTest offers testers to test their own design, site, or app.
Pros:
- The tool allows you to invite in-house or third-party testers by a link
- LookBack supports desktops and mobile devices
- The usability tool also offers a 14-day trial with each of its plans
Cons:
- LookBack is on the pricy side, starting at £20 than most, making this tool one of the most expensive
- Loop11
Loop11 is another popular usability testing tool, which is quite different from other tools on our list. The main difference is you employ test users to offer feedback on the design rather than getting input from site visitors.
The tool offers several features, including:
- Online usability testing
- A/B usability testing
- Prototype testing
- Benchmarking
Online usability testing & A/B testing work to analyse the usability of your site through multiple designs. Prototype testing makes it possible to test prototypes and wireframes, too. You won’t find this feature on the other tools on our list. Finally, benchmarking is the tool’s most unique feature, which allows you to analyse usability over time.
Pros:
- Supports desktop, mobile, and tablet devices
- Features heatmaps, clickstream analysis, and more
- Offers a 14-day trial with each of its plans
Cons:
- Loop11 is more expensive than Hotjar or Crazy Egg.
- Their plans start at £02 a month for the Rapid Insights plan
- Qualaroo
Qualaroo is another interesting usability tool that offers some unique features. For one thing, the tool integrates directly with your site. In addition, it provides behavioural analytics about site users. The tool also offers insights from real users, and you can create a custom set of questions to gain their feedback. In addition, Qualaroo allows you to brand and design the questions, direct to mockup or beta sites, and more.
This usability testing tool also provides many types of insight analysis, such as sentiment analysis and word cloud. It also integrates with other tools for additional analysis with Tableau and Salesforce, and more.
Pros:
- Offers integrations with other popular products and services
- Features powerful targeting per identity and geography
- The tool offers a free plan
- Its most inexpensive plan starts at £49, which is one of the lowest prices around
Cons:
- Qualaroo doesn’t provide support for analytics or integrations with their free plan
- Their flexible billing per tracked pageview can be expensive for larger sites
- Userlytics
Userlytics is a highly robust tool compared to others on our list. The tool offers several features, including:
- Usability testing
- Prototype testing
- Live conversations
- Multichannel user experience
- System usability scale
- And much more
With Userlytics, it’s possible to create and run a wide range of usability tests, including online and in-person and live-interview tests. You can also customise the questions, review tests as videos, and more.
Pros:
- Allows live-conversation or moderated
- Supports testing on desktop and mobile devices
- Offers video features, such as annotations and transcriptions
Cons:
- Userlytics starts at £23 per participant
- The tool’s flexible pricing per participant makes this tool more expensive than others on our list
Summing It Up
Each of these usability tools offers different types of features and price points. Our goal was to provide you with a list of our top usability tools and help you find a usability testing tool that fits your budget.
We hope this list helps you find the best usability testing tool for your designs, websites, and apps.
