From Design to Decision: Unlock Deeper Insights with Video Recording for Prototype Testing

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.

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:

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What’s new at Optimal? 

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Prototype Testing gets more powerful ⚡

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Smarter data exports📊

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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.

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

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• 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.

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

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• 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.

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

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What’s coming next?

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Surveys 2.0 🌟

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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:

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

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

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

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

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• Question cloning: Easily duplicate questions to save time.

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Video Insights: Coming end of 2024 🎬

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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. 

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Help shape what comes next 🫵

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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

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2025 is already proving to be an exciting year for UX research, and we’re just getting started! With a range of new features and updates that empower teams to move from design to decisions faster, Optimal is bringing the best tools to the table for everyone and making research accessible across all teams. Let’s dive into what’s already here and what's coming next!
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Video Recording for Prototype Testing

We’re excited to announce that the closed beta for video recording for prototype testing has launched. By capturing screen, audio, and/or video, this feature takes research beyond metrics to give you a deeper understanding of user intent and pain points. Our Optimal Recruitment service also ensures you connect with the right participants for video recording, driving meaningful insights from the start.

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New Study Flow for Faster Study Creation

Say hello to the new Study Flow, an intuitive tab that helps to accelerate study creation, combining the Messages & instructions and Questionnaire tabs into one. Visualize every step of the participant’s journey, from the welcome screen to the final thank-you message with the Study Flow panel. Save time by quickly duplicating questions across Surveys and other study types. Navigate through studies with ease by collapsing and expanding sections as needed.

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What We’re Working On Next

Here’s a sneak peek at some exciting features in the works:

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AI-Powered Survey Question Simplification
We’re unleashing an AI-powered feature to help users simplify complex question wording and improve clarity. Users can quickly accept, reject, or regenerate more suggestions with a click. By improving clarity and simplifying your questions, you’ll gather more accurate, higher-quality insights that drive better results.

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This AI feature is available for surveys questions as well as screening, pre and post study questions for surveys, prototype tests, card sorts, tree tests and first-click tests. This is just the beginning of even more AI-driven improvements to come, all aimed at helping to accelerate your time to insights.

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Advanced Logic Capabilities
We’re working on bringing more advanced logic capabilities to Optimal - one of the most highly requested features for surveys. With display logic, the study changes dynamically - showing or hiding answer options or subsequence questions based on a participant’s previous responses. Apply display logic to Surveys, screening questions, and pre- and post-study questions. This is just the beginning. We’ll be exploring additional advanced logic capabilities in 2025. 
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Join Us on the Journey
‍Stay tuned for regular updates, and let us know how we can make your research experience even better. Have feedback or feature requests? We’d love to hear from you so we can continue to shape the future of Optimal.