One of the highest impact ways of improving any website is to get feedback from your target audience. In particular understanding their main issues, doubts, hesitations and pain points.
The insights you gain from this feedback will give you very high impact ideas for increasing conversion rates and revenue on your website. And one of the best ways to gather this important feedback is through user testing.
There are now many user testing tools to choose from though, so how do you which is best? To help you choose I have created a comparison of 3 of the most popular options — UserTesting, UserFeel and UserBrain
Pricing
Let’s start with pricing as that is often one of the biggest things to consider when deciding what user testing tool to use.
UserTesting is one of the best tools with the most features, it but has become very expensive and unfortunately only offers an annual subscription plan costing over $20K (you have to contact their sales team for exact pricing). This also does not include unlimited user tests.
UserFeel is much more reasonable and costs just $60 per 20 minute user test with testers from their panel, with a very good amount of features. You can also get 10% off with this exclusive link and discount code: 10FromRich
UserBrain is even cheaper at $39 per test, but has the fewest features when choosing their pay as you go option, like no transcripts and no ability to create video clips.
But let’s continue because as you will see there are many other things to consider when choosing a user testing tool.
Types of user test
All of these tools offer unmoderated user tests which are the most common type. These are where you create the questions and tasks in advance for the user to complete on their own. You get a video and audio recording of them using your website or app while they answer the tasks and questions.
Moderated user tests are longer and provide you more detailed insights, as they are done live and allow the moderator to ask any questions or tasks. UserFeel.com charges more for these ($120 per 60 minute moderated test), whereas they are included as standard on UserTesting. UserBrain does not offer this type of moderated user test.
All of these tools also let you choose the device you wanted user tested, so you can get feedback on desktop websites and mobile websites. UserFeel and UserTesting also allow app testing, but UserBrain does not offer this.
User testers pool
All of these tools have an extensive amount of user testers available across many countries including the USA and UK. UserTesting has the most because the tool has been around for the longest. UserFeel have 1 million and UserBrain have the fewest at only 100K+.
Unless you have very specific or unusual demographics of your target audience, then both UserTesting and Userfeel should ensure you get enough targeted user tests, and possibly UserBrain too. They all offer you the option of using your own user testers too.
Use your own user testers
On UserTesting and Userfeel you can also do user tests with your own testers, which can be recruited from any source like an external panel, or your own customers. This is included as standard on UserTesting, and on Userfeel it costs $30 (a 50% discount), and gives you 60 mins instead of 20 min. You can’t do this at Userbrain unless you choose a monthly plan.
Length of user tests
The longer the time the user test has the better, as this allows you to ask them more detailed questions and tasks, which gives you more feedback.
UserTesting is the best because it has no limits. UserFeel offers 20 mins for $60 which is enough for detailed user feedback. They also offer 40 and 60 minute tests. UserBrain only includes 20 mins which limits the amount of feedback you can get.
UserTesting and UserFeel also include the option to ask written post-test questions, and gives you transcripts of the user test so you can analyze them in depth. UserBrain doesn’t offer these features.
Demographics
Setting demographics of your user testers is essential for finding user testers that are a similar audience to your website visitors, and will result in better and more relevant feedback.
UserTesting and UserFeel have the most demographics options including age, gender, location, language, and level of web experience.
Screener questions
These are very important to ensure you find your exact target audience, and allow you to exclude user tests who don’t fit custom criteria that you need. For example, you could ask a screener question for if they have bought shoes online previously, and if they haven’t then the tool would reject them.
UserTesting and UserFeel both offer unlimited screener questions to fine tune your user testers, but UserBrain only offers one screener question.
Video clips
All of these tools allow you to create video clips so you can note interesting observations and insights. These can be shared and reviewed with team members or even uploaded to YouTube. UserTesting and UserFeel offer this important feature, but UserBrain doesn’t.
So which user testing tool is the best?
If you have a big budget then certainly UserTesting is the best tool, with the most features and biggest pool of user testers. Unfortunately the very high annual cost puts it out reach of most businesses.
That is why I highly recommend UserFeel as it offers nearly the same amount of features as UserTesting, but at a much lower cost, and allows you to pay as you go. Their support is also outstanding and they reply very quickly.
UserBrain is quite basic but getting better. Although the cheapest it doesn’t offer screener questions which are very important, and doesn’t have highlight reels. It’s worth checking out if you have a very limited budget.
The questions and tasks for your user tests are just as important!
It’s not just about choosing the tool though. You also need to ensure you ask the best questions and tasks that will maximize the feedback and insights you get from your user tests. That is why I also created this guide that you should also read before create your user tests:
The best visitor feedback questions to ask for improving any website.
