The Evolution of UX Research: Digital Twins and the Future of User Insight

If there’s one universal truth in user research, it’s that at some point you’re going to need to find people to actually take part in your studies. Be it a large number of participants for quantitative research or a select number for in-depth, in-person user interviews. Finding the right people (and number) of people can be a hurdle.

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With the right strategy, you can source exactly the right participants for your next research project.

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We share a practical step-by-step guide on how to find participants for user experience research.

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The difficulties/challenges of user research recruiting 🏋️

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It has to be acknowledged that there are challenges when recruiting research participants. You may recognize some of these:

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• There are so many channels and methods you can use to find participants, different channels will work better for different projects.
• Repeatedly using the same channels and methods will result in diminishing returns (i.e. burning out participants).
• It’s a lengthy and complex process, and some projects don’t have the luxury of time.
• Offering the right incentives and distributing them is time-consuming.
• It’s hard to manage participants during long-term or recurring studies, such as customer research projects.

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We’ll simplify the process, talk about who the right participants are, and unpack some of the best ways to find them. Removing these blocks can be the easiest way to move forward.

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Who are the right participants for different types of research? 🤔

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1. The first step to a successful participant recruitment strategy is clarifying the goals of your user research and which methods you intend to use. Ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of our research?
• How do we plan to understand that?

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2. Define who your ideal research participant is. Who is going to have the answers to your questions?

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3. Work out your research recruitment strategy. That starts by understanding the differences between recruiting for qualitative and quantitative research.

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Recruiting for qualitative vs. quantitative research 🙋🏻

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Quantitative research recruiting is a numbers game. For your data analysis to be meaningful and statistically significant, you need a lot of data. This means you need to do a lot of research with a lot of people. When recruiting for quantitative research, you first have to define the population (the entire group you want to study). From there, you choose a sampling method that allows you to create a sample—a randomly selected subset of the population who will participate in your study.

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Qualitative recruiting involves far fewer participants, but you do need to find a selection of ‘perfect’ participants. Those that fit neatly into your specific demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral criteria relevant to your study. Recruiting quality participants for qualitative studies involves non-random sampling, screening, and plenty of communication.

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How many participants do you need? 👱🏻👩👩🏻👧🏽👧🏾

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How many participants to include in a qualitative research study is one of the most heavily discussed topics in user research circles. In most cases, you can get away with 5 people – that’s the short answer. With 5 people, you’ll uncover most of the main issues with the thing you’re testing. Depending on your research project there could be as many as 50 participants, but with each additional person, there is an additional cost (money and time).

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Quantitative research is obviously quite different. With studies like card sorts and tree tests, you need higher participant numbers to get statistically meaningful results. Anywhere from 20 - 500 participants, again coming back to the purpose of your test and your research budget. These are usually easier and quicker to implement therefore the additional cost is lower.

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User research recruitment - step by step 👟

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Let’s get into your research recruitment strategy to find the best participants for your research project. There are 5 clear steps to get you through to the research stage:

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1. Identify your ideal participants

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Who are they? What do they do? How old are they? Do they already use your product? Where do they live? These are all great questions to get you thinking about who exactly you need to answer your research questions. The demographic and geographic detail of your participants are important to the quality of your research results.

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2. Screen participants

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Screening participants will weed out those that may not be suitable for your specific project. This can be as simple as asking if the participants have used a product similar to yours. Or coming back to your key identified demographic requirements and removing anyone that doesn’t fit these criteria.

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3. Find prospective participants

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This is important and can be time-consuming. For qualitative research projects, you can look within your organization or ask over social media for willing participants. Or if you’re short on time look at a participant recruitment service, which takes your requirements and has a catalog of available persons to call on. There’s a cost involved, but the time saving can negate this. For qualitative surveys, a great option can be a live intercept on your website or app that interrupts users and asks them to complete a short questionnaire.

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4. Research incentives

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In some cases you will need to provide incentives. This could be offering a prize or discount for those who complete online qualitative surveys. Or a fixed sum for those that take part in longer format quantitative studies.

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5. Scheduling with participants

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Once you have waded through the emails, options, and communication from your inquiries make a list of appropriate participants. Schedule time to do the research, either in person or remotely. Be clear about expectations and how long it will take. And what the incentive to take part is.

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Tips to avoid participant burnout 📛

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You’ve got your participants sorted and have a great pool of people to call on. If you keep hitting the same group of people time and time again, you will experience the law of diminishing returns. Constantly returning to the same pool of participants will eventually lead to fatigue. And this will impact the quality of your research because it’s based on interviewing the same people with the same views.

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There are 2 ways to avoid this problem:

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1. Use a huge database of potential participant targets.
2. Use a mixture of different recruitment strategies and channels.

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Of course, it might be unavoidable to hit the same audience repeatedly when you’re testing your product development among your customer base.

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Wrap up 🌯

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Understanding your UX research recruitment strategy is crucial to recruiting quality participants. A clear idea of your purpose, who your ideal participants are, and how to find them takes time and experience. 

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And to make life easier you can always leave your participant recruitment with us. With a huge catalog of quality participants all at your fingertips on our app, we can recruit the right people quickly.

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Check out more here.

Figma has long been the go-to tool for UI/UX designers, known for its intuitive interface and real-time collaboration. In fact, over 95% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Figma, and 13 million monthly active users trust it to design and prototype digital experiences.

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If you’re already designing in Figma, integrating with Optimal can help to validate your ideas early, reduce costly mistakes, and deliver experiences users actually want.

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The Hidden Cost of Skipping Design Validation

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Validating designs before development and catching usability issues early has a measurable impact on both users and the business. Research consistently shows that:

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• Early usability testing and design validation can reduce later redesign or bug-fix costs by a significant margin up to 40-50%.
• Integrating customer insights into design decisions can increase user satisfaction by up to 70%.
• Companies that prioritize UX design experience a 50% faster time-to-market for their products.

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Figma + Optimal: Prototype Testing and Design Validation

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Instead of waiting for post-launch analytics or expensive redesigns, you can test your Figma prototypes with real users in hours, not weeks with Optimal. Get quantitative data, watch recordings, analyze heatmaps, and actually see where users struggle, all before a single line of code is written.

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Here’s a look into 4 practical ways teams use Figma and Optimal together.

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4 Ways to Test Figma Designs with Optimal

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1. Preference Testing: Let Users Pick the Winner

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Ever had a debate with your team about which design direction to take? Let data decide.

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Here's how:

• Create a Figma frame with two designs side-by-side (think: two homepage variations, competing button styles, different navigation approaches)
• Copy your Figma link and drop it into an Optimal first-click test
• Ask participants: "Which design do you prefer?"
• Watch the results roll in with heatmaps showing exactly where users clicked

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2. Concept Testing: Does Your Idea Actually Make Sense?

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You've got a bold new concept. It makes perfect sense to you. But will users get it?

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The process:

• Build wireframes or mockups in Figma (they don't need to be pixel-perfect)
• Import your Figma link into an Optimal first-click or prototype test
• Create tasks like “Click the option that best matches what you’re trying to do.” or “Click where you would sign up.”
• Analyze whether users successfully understand and navigate your concept

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3. Prototype Testing: Find the Friction Before Development

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You've built a clickable prototype with multiple screens and interactions. It looks polished. But does it actually work for users?

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Step-by-step:

• Build a complete interactive prototype in Figma
• Ensure all frames and flows are complete in Figma before importing into Optimal.
• Copy your Figma prototype URL (works even with password-protected links)
• Paste it into an Optimal prototype test
• Define realistic tasks: "You want to buy running shoes under $100. Complete the purchase."
• Watch video recordings and analyze usability metrics, clickmaps, misclicks, successes/failures, and heatmaps

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What you'll discover might surprise you. Users will:

• Click on things you never intended to be clickable
• Miss obvious CTAs you thought were perfectly placed
• Get lost in navigation that seemed intuitive to your team
• Abandon tasks at friction points you didn't know existed

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4. AI Prototype Testing: Validate AI-Generated Designs

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The rise of AI design tools like Figma Make has changed the game. You can now generate a functional prototype from a text prompt in minutes. But just because AI can create it doesn't mean users can use it.

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Quick workflow:

• Generate a prototype using Figma Make
• Copy the URL and drop it into an Optimal live site test
• Add your testing tasks
• Review recordings to spot usability issues

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This is perfect for rapid experimentation. 

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Getting Started Is Simple

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1. Prep your Figma file - Have a prototype or design ready
2. Copy the link - Grab your Figma share URL
3. Create your test - Choose first-click, prototype test, or live site test in Optimal
4. Paste and configure - Add your Figma URL and write your test tasks
5. Launch - Use your own participants or tap into Optimal's panel or Managed Recruitment services
6. Analyze - Review results and iterate

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Launch Designs Users Love

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Figma gives you the power to design and prototype rapidly, while Optimal gives you the insights to make sure those designs actually work for real users. Together, they create a workflow built on real insights, not guesswork.

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By testing early and often, teams can reduce risk, build confidence in their designs, and move into development knowing their work has already been validated by users. Gather insights quickly, collaborate more effectively, and keep projects moving forward with evidence-backed decisions.

Ready to validate your next Figma prototype? Use Optimal as part of your workflow and start testing with real users today.

In the field of user research, every method is either qualitative, quantitative – or both. Understandably, there’s some confusion around these 2 approaches and where the different methods are applicable. This article provides a handy breakdown of the different terms and where and why you’d want to use qualitative or quantitative research methods.

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Qualitative research

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Let’s start with qualitative research, an approach that’s all about the ‘why’. It’s exploratory and not about numbers, instead focusing on reasons, motivations, behaviors and opinions – it’s best at helping you gain insight and delve deep into a particular problem. This type of data typically comes from conversations, interviews and responses to open questions. The real value of qualitative research is in its ability to give you a human perspective on a research question. Unlike quantitative research, this approach will help you understand some of the more intangible factors – things like behaviors, habits and past experiences – whose effects may not always be readily apparent when you’re conducting quantitative research. A qualitative research question could be investigating why people switch between different banks, for example.

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When to use qualitative research

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Qualitative research is best suited to identifying how people think about problems, how they interact with products and services, and what encourages them to behave a certain way. For example, you could run a study to better understand how people feel about a product they use, or why people have trouble filling out your sign up form. Qualitative research can be very exploratory (e.g., user interviews) as well as more closely tied to evaluating designs (e.g., usability testing). Good qualitative research questions to ask include:

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• Why do customers never add items to their wishlist on our website?
• How do new customers find out about our services?
• What are the main reasons people don’t sign up for our newsletter?

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How to gather qualitative data

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There’s no shortage of methods to gather qualitative data, which commonly takes the form of interview transcripts, notes and audio and video recordings. Here are some of the most widely-used qualitative research methods:

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• Usability test – Test a product with people by observing them as they attempt to complete various tasks.
• User interview – Sit down with a user to learn more about their background, motivations and pain points.
• Contextual inquiry – Learn more about your users in their own environment by asking them questions before moving onto an observation activity.
• Focus group – Gather 6 to 10 people for a forum-like session to get feedback on a product.

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How many participants will you need?

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You don’t often need large numbers of participants for qualitative research, with the average range usually somewhere between 5 to 10 people. You’ll likely require more if you're focusing your work on specific personas, for example, in which case you may need to study 5-10 people for each persona. While this may seem quite low, consider the research methods you’ll be using. Carrying out large numbers of in-person research sessions requires a significant time investment in terms of planning, actually hosting the sessions and analyzing your findings.

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Quantitative research

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On the other side of the coin you’ve got quantitative research. This type of research is focused on numbers and measurement, gathering data and being able to transform this information into statistics. Given that quantitative research is all about generating data that can be expressed in numbers, there multiple ways you make use of it. Statistical analysis means you can pull useful facts from your quantitative data, for example trends, demographic information and differences between groups. It’s an excellent way to understand a snapshot of your users. A quantitative research question could involve investigating the number of people that upgrade from a free plan to a paid plan.

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When to use quantitative research

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Quantitative research is ideal for understanding behaviors and usage. In many cases it's a lot less resource-heavy than qualitative research because you don't need to pay incentives or spend time scheduling sessions etc). With that in mind, you might do some quantitative research early on to better understand the problem space, for example by running a survey on your users. Here are some examples of good quantitative research questions to ask:

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• How many customers view our pricing page before making a purchase decision?
• How many customers search versus navigate to find products on our website?
• How often do visitors on our website change their password?

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How to gather quantitative data

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Commonly, quantitative data takes the form of numbers and statistics.

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Here are some of the most popular quantitative research methods:

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• Card sorts – Find out how people categorize and sort information on your website.
• First-click tests – See where people click first when tasked with completing an action.
• A/B tests – Compare 2 versions of a design in order to work out which is more effective.
• Clickstream analysis – Analyze aggregate data about website visits.

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How many participants will you need?

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While you only need a small number of participants for qualitative research, you need significantly more for quantitative research. Quantitative research is all about quantity. With more participants, you can generate more useful and reliable data you can analyze. In turn, you’ll have a clearer understanding of your research problem. This means that quantitative research can often involve gathering data from thousands of participants through an A/B test, or with 30 through a card sort. Read more about the right number of participants to gather for your research.

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Mixed methods research

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While there are certainly times when you’d only want to focus on qualitative or quantitative data to get answers, there’s significant value in utilizing both methods on the same research projects.Interestingly, there are a number of research methods that will generate both quantitative and qualitative data. Take surveys as an example. A survey could include questions that require written answers from participants as well as questions that require participants to select from multiple choices.

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Looking back at the earlier example of how people move from a free plan to a paid plan, applying both research approaches to the question will yield a more robust or holistic answer. You’ll know why people upgrade to the paid plan in addition to how many. You can read more about mixed methods research in this article:

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• What is mixed methods research?

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Where to from here?

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Now that you know the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, the best way to build confidence is to start testing. Hands-on experience is the fastest path to deeper insight. At Optimal, we make it easy to run your first study, no matter your role or research experience.

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• Explore our 101 guides to user research
• Start a free trial and discover insights that drive real business impact
• How to encourage people to participate in your study – Seemingly one of the hardest parts of conducting research is finding willing participants. It’s actually not that difficult.