Optimal vs Dovetail: Why Smart Product Teams Choose Unified Research Workflows

Summary: The equipment and tools you use to run your user testing sessions can make your life a lot easier. Here’s a quick guide.

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It’s that time again. You’ve done the initial scoping, development and internal testing, and now you need to take the prototype of your new design and get some qualitative data on how it works and what needs to be improved before release. It’s time for the user testing to begin.

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But the prospect of user testing raises an important question, and it’s one that many new user researchers often deliberate over: What gear or equipment should I take with me? Well, never fear. We’re going to break down everything you need to consider in terms of equipment, from video recording through to qualitative note-taking.

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Recording: Audio, screens and video

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The ability to easily record usability tests and user interviews means that even if you miss something important during a session, you can go back later and see what you’ve missed. There are 3 types of recording to keep in mind when it comes to user research: audio, video and screen recording. Below, we’ve put together a list of how you can capture each. You shouldn’t have to buy any expensive gear – free alternatives and software you can run on your phone and laptop should suffice.

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• Audio – Forget dedicated sound recorders; recording apps for smartphones (iOS and Android) allow you to record user interviews and usability tests with ease and upload the recordings to Google Drive or your computer. Good options include Sony’s recording app for Android and the built-in Apple recording app on iOS.
• Transcription – Once you’ve created a recording, you’ll no doubt want a text copy to work with. For this, you’ll need transcription software to take the audio and turn it into text. There are companies that will make transcriptions for you, but software like Transcribe means you can carry out the process yourself.
• Screen recording – Very useful during remote usability tests, screen recording software can show you exactly how participants react to the tasks you set out for them, even if you’re not in the room. OBS Studio is a good option for both Mac and Windows users. You can also use Quicktime (free) if you’re running the test in person.
• Video – Recording your participants as they make their way through the various tasks in a usability test can provide useful reference material at the end of your testing sessions. You can refer back to specific points in a video to capture any detail you may have missed, and you can share video with stakeholders to demonstrate a point. If you don’t have access to a dedicated camera, consider mounting your smartphone on a tripod and recording that way.

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Taking (and making use of) notes

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Notetaking and qualitative user testing go hand in hand. For most user researchers, notetaking during a research session means busting out the Post-it notes and Sharpie pens, rushing to take down every observation and insight and then having to arduously transcribe these notes after the session – or spend hours in workshops trying to identify themes and patterns. This approach still has merit, as it’s often one of the best ways to get people who aren’t too familiar with user research involved in the process. With physical notes, you can gather people around a whiteboard and discuss what you’re looking at. What’s more, you can get them to engage with the material directly.

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But there are digital alternatives. Qualitative notetaking software (like our very own Reframer) means you can bring a laptop into a user interview and take down observations directly in a secure environment. Even better, you can ask someone else to sit in as your notetaker, freeing you up to focus on running the session. Then, once you’ve run your tests, you can use the software for theme and pattern analysis, instead of having to schedule yet another full day workshop.

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Scheduling your user tests

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Ah, participant scheduling. Perhaps one of the most time-consuming parts of the user testing process. Thankfully, software can drastically reduce the logistical burden.

Here are some useful pieces of software:

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Dedicated scheduling tool Calendly is one of the most popular options for participant scheduling in the UX community. It’s really hands-off, in that you basically let the tool know when you’re available, share the Calendly link with your prospective participants, and then they select a time (from your available slots) that works for them. There are also a host of other useful features that make it a popular option for researchers, like integrations and smart timezones.

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If you’re already using the Optimal Workshop platform, you can use our  survey tool Questions as a fairly robust scheduling tool. Simply set up a study and add in prospective time slots. You can then use the multi-choice field option to have people select when they’re available to attend. You can also capture other data and avoid the usual email back and forth.

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Storing your findings
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One of the biggest challenges for user researchers is effectively storing and cataloging all of the research data that they start to build up. Whether it’s video recordings of usability tests, audio recordings or even transcripts of user interviews, you need to ensure that your data is A) easily accessible after the fact, and B) stored securely to ensure you’re protecting your participants.

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Here are some things to ask yourself when you store any piece of customer or user data:

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• Who will have access to this data?
• How long do I plan to keep this data?
• Will this data be anonymized?
• If I’m keeping physical data on hand, where will it be stored?

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Don’t make the mistake of thinking user data is ‘secure enough’, whether that’s on a company server that anyone can access, or even in an unlocked filing cabinet beneath your desk. Data privacy and security should always be at the top of your list of considerations. We won’t dive into best practices for participant data protection in this article, but instead, just mention that you need to be vigilant. Wherever you end up storing information, make sure you understand who has access.

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Wrap up

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Hopefully, this guide has given you an overview of some of the tools and software you can use before you start your next user test. We’ve also got a number of other interesting articles that you can read right here on our blog.

Qualitative user research is about exploration. Exploration is about the journey, not only the destination (or outcome). Gaining information and insights about your users through interviews, usability testing, contextual, observations and diary entries. Using these qualitative research methods to not only answer your direct queries, but to uncover and unravel your users ‘why’.

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It can be important to use qualitative research to really dig deep, get to know your users and get inside their heads, and their reasons. Creating intuitive and engaging products that deliver the best user experience. 

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What is qualitative research? 🔎

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The term ‘qualitative’ refers to things that cannot be measured numerically and qualitative user research is no exception. Qualitative research is primarily an exploratory research method that is typically done early in the design process and is useful for uncovering insights into people’s thoughts, opinions, and motivations. It allows us to gain a deeper understanding of problems and provides answers to questions we didn’t know we needed to ask. 

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Qualitative research could be considered the ‘why’. Where quantitative user research uncovers the how or the what users want. Qualitative user research will uncover why they make decisions (and possibly much more).

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Priorities ⚡⚡⚡⚡

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When undertaking user research it is great to do a mix of quantitative and qualitative research. Which will round out the numbers with human driven insights.

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Quantitative user research methods, such as card sorting or tree testing, will answer the ‘what’ your users want, and provide data to support this. These insights are number driven and are based on testing direct interaction with your product. This is super valuable to report to stakeholders. Hard data is difficult to argue what changes need to be made to how your information architecture (IA) is ordered, sorted or designed. To find out more about the quantitative research options, take a read.

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Qualitative user research, on the other hand, may uncover a deeper understanding of ‘why’ your users want the IA ordered, sorted or designed a certain way.  The devil is in the detail afterall and great user insights are discoverable. 

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Priorities for your qualitative research needs to be less about the numbers, and more on discovering your users ‘why’. Observing, listening, questioning and looking at reasons for users decisions will provide valuable insights for product design and ultimately improve user experience.

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Usability Testing - this research method is used to evaluate how easy and intuitive a product is to use.  Observing, noting and watching the participant complete tasks without interference or questions can uncover a lot of insights that data alone can’t give. This method can be done in a couple of ways, moderated or unmoderated. While it can be quicker to do unmoderated and easier to arrange, the deep insights will come out of moderated testing. 

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Observational - with this qualitative research method your insights will be uncovered from observing and noting what the participant is doing, paying particular attention to their non-verbal communication. Where do they demonstrate frustration, or turn away from the task, or change their approach? Factual note taking, meaning there shouldn’t be any opinions attached to what is being observed, is important to keep the insights unbiased.

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Contextual - paying attention to the context in which the interview or testing is done is important. Is it hot, loud, cold or is the screen of their laptop covered in post-its that make it difficult to see? Or do they struggle with navigating using the laptop tracker? All of this noted, in a factual manner, without personal inferring or added opinion based observations can give a window into why the participant struggled or was frustrated at any point.

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These research methods can be done as purely observational research (you don’t interview or converse with your participant) and noting how they interact (more interested in the process than the outcome of their product interaction). Or, these qualitative research methods can be coupled with an

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Interview - a series of questions asked around a particular task or product. Careful note taking around what the participant says as well as noting any observations. This method should allow a conversation to flow. Whilst the interviewer should be prepared with a list of questions around their topic, remain flexible enough to dig deeper where there might be details or insights of interest. An interviewer that is comfortable in getting to know their participants unpicks reservations and allows a flow of conversation, and generates amazing insights.

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With an interview it can be of use to have a second person in the room to act as the note taker. This can free up the interviewer to engage with the participant and unpick the insights.

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Using a great note taking side kick, like our Reframer, can take the pain out of recording all these juicy and deep insights. Time-stamping, audio or video recordings and notes all stored in one place. Easily accessed by the team, reviewed, reports generated and stored for later.

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Let’s consider 🤔

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You’re creating a new app to support your gym and it’s website. You’re looking to generate personal training bookings, allow members to book classes or have updates and personalise communication for your members. But before investing in final development it needs to be tested. How do your users interact with it? Why would they want to? Does it behave in a way that improves the user experience? Or does it simply not deliver? But why?

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First off, using quantitative research like Chalkmark would show how the interface is working. Where are users clicking, where do they go after that. Is it simple to use? You now have direct data that supports your questions, or possibly suggests a change of design to support quicker task completion, or further engagement.

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While all of this is great data for the design, does it dig deep enough to really get an understanding of why your users are frustrated? Do they find what they need quickly? Or get completely lost? Finding out these insights and improving on them can make the most of your users’ experience.

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When quantitative research is coupled with robust qualitative research that prioritizes an in-depth understanding of what your users need, ultimately the app can make the most of your users’ experience.

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Using moderated usability testing for your gym app, observations can be made about how the participant interacts with the interface. Where do they struggle, get lost, or where do they complete a task quickly and simply. This type of research enhances the quantitative data and gives insight into where and why the app is or isn't performing.

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Then interviewing participants about why they make decisions on the app, how they use it and why they would use it. These focussed questions, with some free flow conversation will round out your research. Giving valuable insights that can be reviewed, analyzed and reported to the product team and key stakeholders. Focussing the outcome, and designing a product that delivers on not just what users need, but in-depth understand of why. 

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Wrap Up 🥙

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Quantitative and qualitative user research do work hand in hand, each offering a side to the same coin. Hard number driven data with quantitative user research will deliver the what needs to be addressed. With focussed quantitative research it is possible to really get a handle on why your users interact with your product in a certain way, and how. 

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The Optimal Workshop platform has all the tools, research methods and even the note taking tools you need to get started with your user research, now, not next week! See you soon.

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Enterprise teams frequently encounter pressure from leadership to adopt consolidated platforms like Qualtrics that promise to handle multiple functions including PX, EX, and CX, in a single solution for all user feedback needs. While these multidisciplinary platforms may seem appealing from a procurement perspective, they often fall short for specialized use cases. UX and product teams typically find that purpose-built platforms like Optimal deliver superior results and stronger ROI. These specialized solutions offer the depth of functionality teams actually need while maintaining significantly reduced complexity and cost compared to enterprise-wide platforms that try to be everything to everyone.

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Why Choose Optimal over Qualtrics? 

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Specialist Research Platforms Outperform Generalist Platforms

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Purpose-Built Research Features: Specialized platforms eliminate feature bloat while providing deep capabilities in their area of focus, enabling teams to achieve better results.

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Feature Overload: In contrast, enterprise platforms like Qualtrics provide hundreds of features across multiple use cases, creating complexity and inefficiency for research and product teams looking for user insight to drive their decisions.

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Research Team Optimization: Purpose-built research platforms optimize specifically for product and research team workflows, participant experience, and user insight quality.

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Multi-Department Compromise: Enterprise platforms often represent compromises across multiple departments, resulting in tools that serve everyone to some degree but no one team really well.

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What does this look like when you compare Qualtrics to Optimal? 

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Optimal's UX Research Focus: Built specifically for UX and product research, Optimal eliminates unnecessary complexity while providing deep capabilities for user testing, prototype validation, and product insight that UX teams actually use. Optimal includes comprehensive capabilities like live site testing (test actual websites and web apps without code), advanced prototype testing with Figma integration, and AI-powered Interviews that transform hours of video analysis into automated insights with key themes, highlight reels, and timestamped evidence.

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Qualtrics' Broad Scope Challenge: Qualtrics serves customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX), and product experience (PX) across entire enterprises. This broad scope creates feature overload that overwhelms UX research teams who need focused, efficient tools. They are a "jack of all trades, master of none".

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Streamlined Implementation and Transparent Costs

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Transparent UX Research Pricing: Optimal offers straightforward, flat-rate pricing focused on UX research capabilities without forcing teams to subsidize enterprise modules irrelevant to their workflow.

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License Costs: In contrast, Qualtrics is the most expensive tool on the market with complex modular licensing that forces teams to pay for CX and EX capabilities they don't need for UX research.

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Get Started in Minutes: Optimal's intuitive design enables teams to launch studies in minutes, no complex set up, no engineering support required.

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Professional Services Requirements: Qualtrics implementations often require expensive professional services, extended onboarding periods, and ongoing consulting to achieve success.

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In addition to feature complexity, platforms like Qualtrics often come with high costs for the features your team doesn't really need. While some of these larger, multi-department platforms may appear cost-effective because they offer tool consolidation, the total cost of ownership often includes substantial professional services, extended training periods, and ongoing support requirements that specialized teams end up absorbing, despite utilizing only a fraction of available capabilities.

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For the Best User Insights Specialization Beats Generalization

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While Qualtrics serves enterprise survey needs across multiple departments, UX research teams achieve better results with purpose-built platforms that eliminate unnecessary features while providing clear ROI. Optimal delivers 90% of Qualtrics' enterprise platform value with 10% of the complexity.

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User research excellence requires tools designed specifically for UX workflows. Smart research and product teams choose platforms that enhance your research impact rather than adding implementation overhead and workflow friction.

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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.

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