Bye-bye Beta 👋🏼 Hello Prototype Testing 🚀

We’re excited to launch our video recording functionality for prototype testing, enabling you to dive deeper into the “why” behind user actions and empowering you to make data-informed decisions faster and with greater confidence.

See User Actions Come to Life

Capture the nuance of user interactions with screen, audio, and/or video recording. With Optimal’s video recording feature, you can:
‍

• Understand Intent: Watch users in action to reveal their decision-making process.
• Spot Friction Points: Identify moments of hesitation, confusion, or frustration.
• Test Your Ideas: Leverage user insights to make informed decisions before moving forward.‍
• Track Task Success: Combine video insights with quantitative data to understand what works and what needs refinement.
• Share Compelling Insights: Use recordings to drive alignment across your team and key stakeholders.
  ‍

Drive Value with Video Recordings and Prototype Testing

‍
‍By combining video recordings with prototype testing, you can unlock actionable insights that make a real impact. 
‍

Here’s how they drive value for your initiatives:
‍

• Higher Conversion Rates: Optimized designs based on real user feedback lead to increased engagement.
• Greater User Satisfaction: Tested prototypes help to better align your experiences with user needs and expectations.
• Reduced Development Costs: Catch issues early to avoid costly fixes later in the development process.
• Faster Time-to-Market: Resolve design flaws early to accelerate project timelines.
  ‍

Recruit the Right Participants for Richer Results‍

Optimal combines the power of video recording, participant recruitment, and a comprehensive UX insights and research platform to elevate your product and research process.
‍

Use Optimal’s recruitment service to quickly connect you with millions of people in 150+ countries ready to take part in your study. Our in-house team handles feasibility assessments, sends reminders and confirmations, reviews personalized study setups, and conducts human checks to ensure high quality participants to maximize the value of your video recordings.
‍

Thank you, Beta Testers‍

We’re grateful to our early adopters and beta testers for shaping the future of video recording and prototype testing. Based on your valuable feedback, we’ve made the following updates:
‍

Video recording updates

• Additional recording controls: You can now control whether to reject participants or forward a participant to a non-recording study link if they do not meet your recording criteria. 
• Translations: Set your study language and translate the recording instructions into 180+ languages.
• No video expirations: We’ve removed video expirations, ensuring your recordings remain accessible as long as you have an active Optimal subscription.
• Improved participant experience: We’ve improved the technology to reduce technical errors, creating a more reliable and user-friendly experience.
  ‍

Prototype testing updates

• Collapse/expand and move tasks: Increase prototype visibility by hiding or moving tasks, making it easier for participants to view and interact with more of your design, especially for mobile prototypes.
• Option to end tasks automatically: When enabled, tasks will automatically end 0.5 seconds after a participant reaches a correct destination, removing the need for participants to confirm that they've completed the task. This can improve the overall participant experience, removing steps and making tests faster to complete.
  
• Increased Figma frame limit:  We’ve increased the Figma frame limit from 30 to 100 frames to support larger, more complex prototypes.
• Expanded task results: Task path results now indicated completed and skipped tasks for better analysis.
• Time-saving improvements: Auto-select the starting screen after importing a Figma prototype, and enjoy task selection persistence across tabs in the analysis view.
• Enhanced security: We’ve updated Figma authorization for expanded security for your prototypes.
  ‍

Ready to unlock the power of video recording?
Get started with a prototype test in Optimal or visit our help documentation to learn more.

‍

We've been hard at work enhancing your research capabilities, and we're excited to share what's new at Optimal. Here's what we've shipped to help you uncover even deeper insights:

‍

‍

What’s new at Optimal? 

‍

‍

Prototype Testing gets more powerful ⚡

‍

Since launching the Beta, we've been collaborating closely with hundreds of Optimal customers to gather feedback and run usability testing. Your support has been invaluable, and we’re excited to announce these latest updates for Prototype Testing:

‍

Improved security with password management: A new "Password settings" button allows users to manage stored passwords, which participants receive before starting their Prototype Study. Additionally, users are prompted for a password when importing protected prototypes.

‍

Improvements to usability: Your feedback was taken onboard, and we’ve updated the buttons, including "Re-sync to file" and "Change prototype," to improve usability.

‍

Results sharing: You can now easily share specific sections (e.g., analysis, tasks, clickmaps) via a URL with your stakeholders in just a few clicks. With the added protection of a password for secure access.

‍

Participant data view: To speed up your data analysis and improve your workflows we’ve added task metrics in the "Results > Participants" table, showing tasks completed, skipped, and success percentage.

‍

Notes tab in analysis: Users can now take notes directly in the Analysis section for Task Results, Click Maps, Paths, and Questionnaires.

‍

‍

Smarter data exports📊

‍

This release makes it easier for users to analyze data faster with flexible export options and an improved format for questionnaire and survey downloads. Find out more about the updates below.

‍

• Additional download export options: Access new download questionnaire data options. Choose to download questionnaire data by pre-study, post-study, and screening questions.

‍

• Organized question tabs: Navigate your data more easily with each question exported to its own tab in the download spreadsheet. Each question tab will mirror the question and answer format/structure found under the Questionnaire section.

‍

• Dedicated screening question tab: Review screener questions - now separated in a dedicated tab - with the added option to exclude them from your export.

‍

• Added index numbers for survey analysis: An index number column (e.g. 1, 2, 3) has been added next to the labels for radio, Likert, and checkbox question types in the "Participant data" download for easier analysis. A new tab has been added to display answer indices for fixed set questions (e.g., radio, checkbox, multi-select), while matrix questions will still export with their values.

‍

To get started, navigate to the Downloads tab under Results. Results Downloads are available for all tools except for Qualitative Insights.

‍

‍

What’s coming next?

‍

‍

Introducing the shiny new Qualitative Insights tool (the artist formally known as Reframer)✨

‍

We’re just days away from the re-launch of our Qualitative Insights tool, previously known as Reframer. This upgrade brings powerful new features to streamline and enhance your qualitative data analysis, making it faster, easier, and more insightful than ever.

‍

With the new Insights feature, you can capture and organize key takeaways from studies more efficiently. Each Insight — which includes a title, description, and linked observations — will live under the new Insights tab, allowing you to quickly gather and manage critical findings. You can create Insights directly from your observations or leverage AI to accelerate insight discovery, surfacing hidden themes within your data.

‍

AI-Driven Insights with full control: You and your organization retain complete control over AI usage. All AI-generated results are fully editable, giving you the flexibility to adjust or even turn off AI support for your studies. Use AI as much or as little as needed, with peace of mind over your data management.

‍

‍

Surveys 2.0 🌟

‍

Enhanced usability
Our survey relaunch focuses on significantly improving usability, making creating, editing, and launching surveys easier than ever. Key releases coming late 2024 include:

‍

• Simplified setup: Manage your entire survey flow - welcome, screening, pre-study, study questions, and thank you - on one page.

‍

• Question grouping: Create and manage question groups for better organization.

‍

• Question mobility: Move individual questions or groups within a study effortlessly.

‍

• Flexible question placement: Add questions at any point in the survey flow.

‍

• Question cloning: Easily duplicate questions to save time.

‍

‍

Video Insights: Coming end of 2024 🎬

‍

By the end of the year, we’ll be adding Video Recording to our Prototype Testing tool. This new feature will allow you to better understand user experiences, and gain even deeper insights during a Prototype test. Video recording will be browser-based, with no plug-in required, eliminating setup complexities. Participant consent to record screen, face and voice is all taken care of by Optimal and captured upfront in the testing process. 

‍

‍

Help shape what comes next 🫵

‍

Join our research panel and influence Optimal's future! You'll get early access to new features and thank-you gifts for your time. Interested? 

Email product@optimalworkshop.com

‍

‍

When evaluating research and insight tools, a proven track record makes a difference. Askable is beginning to expand into unmoderated testing, while Optimal brings over a decade of enterprise-ready experience supporting the full research and product development lifecycle.

‍

Why choose Optimal instead of Askable?

‍

Platform Scope and Capabilities

‍

• Askable's Limitations: While Askable recently expanded into unmoderated research, the platform lacks depth in this area, missing critical analytics, advanced visualizations, and essential survey capabilities like complex question types and conditional logic. ‍
• Optimal's Advantage: With over a decade of unmoderated research expertise, Optimal delivers a mature platform refined through years of customer feedback and innovation. The platform offers comprehensive analytics, robust survey logic, and advanced AI features, approachable enough for those new to research yet powerful enough for teams experienced with UX research.

‍

Global Reach and Participant Quality

‍

• Regional Limitations: Askable's participant panel concentrates heavily in Australia and New Zealand, limiting global research capabilities. For enterprises requiring international insights, this geographic constraint becomes a significant bottleneck.
• Worldwide Coverage: Optimal partners with 100+ million verified participants across 150+ countries, enabling global research at scale. Advanced fraud prevention and screening protocols ensure participant quality regardless of location.

‍

User Experience and Customer Support

‍

• Inconsistent Support: Users have described Askable's interface as confusing, with insufficient onboarding resources and limited technical support. ‍
• Intuitive Design with Robust Support: Optimal combines an intuitive, user-friendly interface with comprehensive onboarding and dedicated technical support. Advanced AI features accelerate analysis and insight generation.

‍

Why Enterprises Choose Optimal Over Askable

‍

1. Proven Unmoderated Research Expertise. Optimal brings over a decade of specialized experience in unmoderated research, where powerful analytics meet a user-friendly platform, helping teams test, validate assumptions, and ship with confidence.
2. Advanced Research Capabilities. While Askable has centered on participant recruitment, Optimal includes: Built-in UX testing tools, AI-powered analysis and insights, Automated reporting and visualization, Survey and prototype testing capabilities‍
3. Enterprise-Grade Support. Optimal provides dedicated account management and comprehensive fraud prevention assurance, whereas Askable offers standard support options without the specialized enterprise features global brands require.‍
4. Scalability for Growing Teams. As teams need more sophisticated testing and analysis capabilities, they must invest in additional tools. Optimal grows with research programs from basic recruitment through advanced insight generation.

‍

Ready to see how leading brands including Lego, Netflix and Nike achieve better research outcomes? Experience how Optimal's platform delivers user insights that adapt to your team's growing needs.

‍