What Tools Do UX Researchers Use?
UX researchers need to interview product users, set up product tests, and gather the hard data to turn it into design insights. Whether this is your primary role or a part of your UX design role, UX research is crucial to achieve successful UX design.
UX researchers often use software tools to enhance the speed and efficiency of their work. Each tool you choose should help solve the problems you work on every day, and also facilitate collaboration with your team members.
You also may need your UX research tools to integrate with each other, making it easy to transfer files and designs between them. Plus, you need your UX researcher tools to be well-liked by your team, so you’re all on board with using them.
Here are some of the UX research tools available in the industry today:
1. UXPin
This tool lets you drag and drop any element of UX design into a simple wireframe. It’s also a complete UX design solution, helping design a website or app all the way to the prototype stage. It can transform Photoshop and Sketch designs into interactive app or website prototypes. Designlab students get 25% off!
2. YesInsights
Send detailed (or simple) surveys to website users with YesInsights. They can complete the survey while browsing your website, giving you feedback based on your users’ immediate needs, feelings, and ideas.
3. Zendesk Suite
Add a chat feature to your website, and engage willing users with real-time chats about their website experience using Zendesk. You can ask them what is and is not working, as well as what they need improved—and keep the conversation in a chat history for later insights.
4. UXTesting
This tool will help you gather video interviews of users of your app, website, or prototype. You’ll be able to hear their tone of voice and see their facial expressions, along with videos of where they are on your website or app and what they were doing at the time.
5. 4QSurvey
Add a simple Javascript snippet to your website to gather feedback from real website users. It helps you gather a large amount of research data to reach insights that can help you create better designs.
6. Slack
Keep in constant communication with every other member of your design team using Slack. You can share your latest research and insights with designers, managers, and others. Link your Dropbox, Google Drive, Twitter, and other communication apps for ease of collaboration.
7. UserTesting
UserTesting specializes in helping you find willing users to test out your prototypes. It also lets you communicate with users in real-time to gather immediate feedback—and give help—during testing.
8. UXCam App Analytics
This tool focuses on creating detailed analytics for your mobile app. You can even take screen recordings to find the features and areas that are causing user challenges within your product.
9. Dscout
This will help you find the right type of users to test products and even services. It helps users to record their impressions during and immediately after an interaction with your product.
10. Hotjar
This tool gives you a code snippet to add to your website. It then records user sessions on specified pages, providing detailed data on how the user clicks, scrolls, and interacts with the site in various ways.
