10 Top-Rated UX Research Tools To Use In 2023

When it comes to user research tools, there are so many available on the market these days and choosing the right one for your business can be daunting. However, why not start 2023 on the right track by having the best user experience research tools at hand?

In this article, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of our top 10 UX research tools that every marketer should research in 2023, both free and paid.

What Is Biometric UX Testing?

Website User Experience (UX) is all about the usability of your digital products and the user experience when interacting with your services. On the other hand, Biometric UX Testing allows you to further understand user behaviour and elevate your customer experience.

One of the most crucial parts of product and service development for any brand is the user experience. The key goal is to provide a clear environment for people to browse around your products and services with ease. The intended end-user must be completely satisfied with their experience with your website, and that’s where UX research tools come to help!

If you want to find out more, make sure to read our blog on Biometric UX Testing – Elevate Your Customer Experience.

Did you know that a well-designed user interface with a strong UX can result in conversion rates going up to 200% for a website? Now let’s find out how you can achieve that by choosing the right tool for your research!

What Are UX Research Tools?

UX research tools are pieces of software or apps that enable UX researchers to maximise their research effectiveness and gather insights.

Some common tools that UX researchers use nowadays include tools for usability testing, user interviews, surveys, card sorting, tree testing, and first-click testing.

A UX research tool may also include solutions for recruiting participants, documenting research, and transcribing interviews for more complex projects.

The Benefits Of UX Research Tools

UX research tools can offer companies valuable user insights based on individualised research, whether they’re attempting to launch a new app, product, or service or if they simply want to know what their consumers think about their website. They can greatly increase performance by identifying the areas of improvement for any digital product.

To perform quality UX research and manage different phases of the workflow process, usually, researchers have access to a variety of UX tools. Whilst they’re all different in one way or another, they are always intended to help companies to provide a better experience to their users.

Throughout the year, we’ve seen continuous growth and expansion in the range of UX research tools available on the market. Today, some even include everything from participant recruitment to voice recording, remote sessions, transcribing interviews and producing real-time reports!

And the aim of this article is to help you choose the best one for your wants and needs!

Top UX Research Tools In 2023

One thing to remember is that the best UX research tools should naturally meet the most demands with the fewest constraints!

So here is the list you’ve been looking for when building your UX tools stack so you can establish an effective research practice:

Hotjar
Maze
Loop11
Userlytics
Userzoom
Lookback
UXtweak
Prolific
User Interviews
Userbrain

1. Hotjar

Hotjar is one of the best remote UX research tools that allow you to view real-time user behaviour via heatmaps and screen recordings.

It has a huge amount of data available and in-app surveys, which makes it a great solution if you’re looking to focus on heat mapping as a research method and want to really understand the nuance of user behaviour. Essentially, this tool helps you see what people do on your website pages: where they click, how far they scroll, what they look at or ignore, and so much more!

Key features: Heatmaps, screen recordings, unmoderated research, in-product feedback widgets, follow-up surveys, conversion funnels, and more

Pricing: The Free Plan allows you to have 35 sessions per day, unlimited heatmaps, and 1,050 recordings per month. The Paid Plan starts from £30 per month

2. Maze

Maze is a popular product discovery platform that empowers teams to collect and consume user insights proficiently.

It has plenty of UX resources and solutions for participant recruitment, product research, and reporting, all of which help companies to build the habit of continuous product discovery in a platform that enables everyone to run great research.

Key features: Prototype testing, surveys, 5-second testing, tree testing, card sorting, and more

Pricing: Free Plan is available. The Pro Plan is £60 per month

3. Loop11

Loop11 can help you conduct moderated and unmoderated usability testing on live websites, prototypes, and competitors’ websites, among many others.

With this UX research tool, you can start testing at the wireframing and prototyping stage to ensure your designs are headed in the right direction. Even more, another valuable feature of Loop11 is that it can help user researchers to conduct competitive benchmarking, A/B testing, and IA testing.

Key features: Heatmaps and clickstream analysis, benchmarking, testing of live websites or prototypes, A/B testing, and more

Pricing: Starts at £50 per month

4. Userlytics

Userlytics is a great user testing platform that helps you conduct research at scale by testing digital assets like websites, applications, mobile apps, prototypes, and more.

Here, you can collect both qualitative and quantitative data and set up advanced metrics and graphical reports. You can also run any combination of moderated or unmoderated user experience studies, usability tests, card sorting, and tree testing using a diversity of features.

Key features: Usability testing, UX studies, prototype testing, live conversations, card sorting, and more

Pricing: Starts at £40 per month

5. Userzoom

Userzoom is a platform ideal for doing enterprise-level UX research and testing.

It can be used to test prototypes and websites, follow the activities of remote testers, do market research, and much more. A really interesting feature we like about this tool is that it allows you to personalise your plan by adding a choice of extra features based on your requirements.

Key features: Usability testing, interviews, click testing, participant recruitment, and more

Pricing: Available upon request

6. Lookback

Lookback turns research sceptics into research champions!

This UX research tool specialises in moderated and unmoderated user tests. It’s a great option when you already have the testers for your study, as they don’t provide any help with recruiting. However, it has a very collaborative dashboard, a live note-talking feature, and more.

Key features: Multiple people can observe your study and even take their own notes, live broadcasts, and unlimited participants

Pricing: They offer a free 60-day trial. The Paid Plan starts from £20 per month with a limit of 10 sessions per year, and their professional “Insights Hub” plan is £280 per month (annual billing)

7. UXtweak

UXtweak is an all-in-one UX research tool which has grown massively in the previous year. It has all the capabilities you need to create the ideal website that people will want to visit again and again!

It provides advanced analytics combined with a great UI that is easy to understand, even for a complete beginner.

Key features: Website testing, session recording, tree testing, card sorting, preference test, 5-second test, surveys, and much more

Pricing: The Free Plan includes an unlimited number of live studies and no study time restrictions, making it ideal for smaller projects. The Pro Plan is only £75 per month (annual billing), or you can request a custom plan tailored to your specific requirements.

8. Prolific

Prolific is an online research platform that empowers great UX research! It provides the recruitment and management of participants for your online research.

It brings researchers from academia, startups, and organisations together with their participant pool, and as a researcher, you can use your existing study/survey software to integrate with Prolific! You can also choose your target respondents with their prescreening and collect hundreds or thousands of responses quickly and easily. Once you’ve reviewed the data, you can approve and pay the participants with just a few clicks.

Key features: Superior data quality, flexibility, scalability and more

Pricing: Free

PS: Prolific featured us in one of their amazing blogs on how eye-tracking can help you better understand user behaviour – check it out!

9. User Interviews

User Interviews has valuable features like screener surveys, scheduling interviews, and participation tracking for your existing users.

The median turnaround time is 2 hours, though it can vary based on the nature of your project. This tool is truly a one-stop shop for recruiting participants from your current pool of users comprised of over 350,000 ready, willing, and vetted research participants. Even more, you can also target over 500 different professions!

Key features: Participant recruitment, screener surveys, scheduling interviews, messaging participants, automatic incentives, participation tracking, and more

Pricing: From £32 per session or £200 per month

10. Userbrain

Userbrain is a fantastic UX research tool that you can use to test anything, ask questions, and get voice-over video results.

You can also annotate the recordings, tag them for better organising, and share links with your coworkers. All in all, this tool can really show you what’s working for your product and what’s not!

Key features: Complex website testing, automated user testing, and more

Pricing: The Pro Plan is £2450 per year or £250 per month. They also offer a pay-as-you-go option, where you can pay £32 per tester

Have You Found Your Favourite?

And there you have it – our list of 10 top-rated UX Research Tools that every marketer should know about!

It is extremely important to choose a quality UX research tool that works for you and your business so you can effectively identify the needs and preferences of your customers and users. With that said, there isn’t really a single “best” user research tool that’ll work for everyone, but there are certainly some that stand out from the rest for particular purposes. So whether you need a UX research tool for recruiting participants, conducting user interviews, or collecting feedback from users, we hope our list can offer you the guidance you need!

At Lnet Digital, we research, audit, analyse, and design UX testing and research by combining Biometric Technology with Neuromarketing to achieve evidence-based user experience research for our clients.

If you want to turn your visitors into customers, increase your sales, and skyrocket your UX, contact us, and one of our friendly team members will be happy to help!And always remember…”Supposing is good, but finding out is better!”