Introducing Live Site Testing: Real Insights from Real Interactions

The pace of product development has never been faster, and the cost of building on assumptions has never been higher. At Optimal, we've spent nearly two decades helping teams get closer to their users, and what we're seeing right now is a fundamental shift in how research gets done. More teams are running research than ever before and timelines to act on findings are tighter, while the expectations for what research needs to deliver keep rising. 

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That shift is exactly what's driving Optimal 3.0, our most ambitious reinvention of the platform yet, designed to give every team the speed, depth, and flexibility that modern research demands. Today's release is the next step in that journey.

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Optimal's new mixed-methods research tool tears down the boundaries between methods. It brings prototype testing, live site testing, and surveys into a single, end-to-end study workflow. And grounded in our product principles: speed to insights, access for all, and communication. 
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A Unified Way to Test Usability
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True multi-method research

Optimal’s new Usability Testing tool marks the next step in the evolution of Optimal 3.0, giving teams the flexibility to evaluate experiences in whatever form they exist today.
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• Early-stage ideas and concepts
• Interactive prototypes
• AI-generated or experimental flows
• Live production experiences
• Competitor or benchmark sites
• Surveys and structured feedback
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Combine prototype testing, AI prototype testing, live site testing, and surveys in a single study. Test multiple prototypes side by side, compare different live URLs, or mix prototype and live site tasks together all in one workflow. Research can now mirror how products actually evolve, from early concept to shipped experience.
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Richer qualitative insight collection

New speak-aloud question types, custom message blocks, auto-generated transcripts and insights, citations and highlight clips help you capture the context and reasoning behind every action. AI-assisted analysis then helps you make sense of it all fast and communicate with impact.
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A redesigned results and insights layer

Review a study overview surfacing key themes, pain points, and sentiment analysis combining insights across all your study methods along with detailed results, task analysis and recordings, transcripts, key quotes, and automatically generated citations and video clips. 

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Coming soon: you can also use AI Chat to chat with your data directly, asking questions and pulling new insights and evidence across all your qualitative and quantitative inputs.

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Six ways to put it to work

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1. Compare design variations in a single study, such as multiple navigation layouts, checkout flows, or onboarding concepts
2. Explore early-stage concepts before committing to build
3. Benchmark current live experience vs a redesigned prototype
4. Test staging vs production, or two campaign landing pages
5. Validate end-to-end journeys from concept to live experiences
6. Compare your experience against competitors‍

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Why this matters

Modern product development is no longer linear. Teams continuously move between:
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• Discovery and validation
• Design and iteration
• Prototype and production
• Concept and reality
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Traditional usability testing tools were not built for this fluidity.  Optimal’s Usability Testing brings the flexibility to match how teams actually work today.

By combining multiple methods into a single study and pairing it with AI-powered synthesis, Usability Testing helps teams reduce setup and analysis time, recruit once, capture richer qualitative context, compare experiences more easily, move faster from feedback to action, and tell clearer, more compelling insight stories. 
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Learn how to get started with Usability Testing in Optimal and accelerate your path from idea to insight. Book a meeting, start exploring in your account, or join our live training webinar on June 24th to see it in action.

Coordinating user interviews shouldn’t feel like a full-time job. Between juggling calendars, chasing confirmations, and sending reminders, scheduling can be the hidden bottleneck in research velocity and quietly consume the time you actually want to spend talking to customers. 
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If you want to run more interviews and generate insights more consistently, simplifying your scheduling process is one of best ways to remove friction and streamline your workflow.
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Save time and streamline your workflow

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What does a simpler workflow look like? 

With a tool like Optimal’s Interviews Scheduler, you can:
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• Invite participants via a booking link or email
• View upcoming and completed sessions in one place
• Connect with tools you already use like Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
• Let participants reschedule themselves. No back-and-forth emails.
• Add collaborators and automatically notify everyone of changes.
• Set session limits and calendar buffers.
• Automate email invites, reminders, confirmations, and thank-you messages.
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It’s everything you need to manage interviews without the chaos.
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Calendar integrations: Avoid conflicts and save time

With the Interviews Scheduler, you can sync your availability with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook in real time. Connect your own calendar or your team’s to ensure every busy slot is accounted for. Avoid double bookings, block out busy times, and keep everything in one place. 

Once set up, your availability automatically updates, and participants can book directly into open slots, eliminating the back-and-forth. Plus, depending on your preferences, your sessions will either sync directly to your calendar or come through as an .ics file in the confirmation email, saving you one more step.
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Seamless video conferencing integrations

The Interviews Scheduler integrates directly with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet.

When someone books a session:

• A video link is automatically generated
• It’s added to the calendar invite
• Everyone receives confirmation details
• Sessions can be automatically recorded

No copying links. No switching between tools.
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Built for research teams

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The Interviews Scheduler isn’t just about booking time slots. It’s about removing friction from your research workflow.

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With integrations at its core, you can:

• Keep your calendar, video tools, and participants in sync
• Reduce manual coordination
• Eliminate scheduling errors
• Focus on insights instead of admin

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Whether you’re running one-off interviews or managing weekly research sprints, the Interviews Scheduler helps you move faster and stay organised.

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Ready to give it a try? Log in to your Optimal account and get started or book a demo to learn more.

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Inspired by insights from Optimal users, we’ve reimagined study creation to bring you a beautifully streamlined experience with the new Study Flow tab.

With the new Study Flow, you’ll: 

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⚡ Enjoy faster study set up: Messages & instructions and Questionnaire tabs are combined in a single tab - called Study Flow - for faster editing and settings customization.

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✨ See it all at a glance: Easily visualize and understand the participant experience—from the welcome message to the final thank-you screen—every step of the way. 

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🎯 Duplicate questions: Save time and quickly replicate questions for surveys, screening questions, and pre- and post-study questions. 

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⭐ Experience enhanced UI: Enjoy a modern, clean design with intuitive updates that minimize scrolling and reduce mental load.

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🗂️ Collapse and expand sections: Easily navigate studies by collapsing and expanding sections, making it easier to build out specific parts of your study.

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This Study Flow tab is available across all Optimal tools, except for Qualitative Insights. 

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What’s next?

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We’re not stopping there. We have some significant improvements on the horizon designed to give you even greater flexibility and control.

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Advanced logic: Enhanced logic capabilities is one of our most highly requested features, and we’re thrilled to introduce new capabilities to help you build your ideal study experience – available for surveys and other tools. We will first introduce “display logic”, allowing for: 

• If answer is X for Question Y, then hide/show Question Z.
• If answer is X for Question Y, then hide/show specific answer options.

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Customizable sections: Organize your questions into different sections to build a better study experience for your participants. For example, segment your questions into relevant groupings, such as demographics or product usage. With custom sections, you can add new sections, rename, reorder, duplicate, and move questions between different sections.* 

*Note: Questions cannot be moved to/from the screening questions section.

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These upcoming features will empower you to create dynamic, tailored study experiences for different audiences with ease for more valuable insights. 

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Start exploring the new Study Flow now.