A year ago, we looked at the user research market and made a decision.

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We saw product teams shipping faster than ever while research tools stayed stuck in time. We saw researchers drowning in manual work, waiting on vendor emails, stitching together fragmented tools. We heard "should we test this?" followed by "never mind, we already shipped."

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The dominant platforms got comfortable. We didn't.

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Today, we're excited to announce Optimal 3.0, the result of refusing to accept the status quo and building the fresh alternative teams have been asking for.

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The Problem: Research Platforms Haven't Evolved

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The gap between product velocity and research velocity has never been wider. The situation isn't sustainable. And it's not the researcher's fault. The tools are the problem. They’re: 

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• Built for specialists only - Complex interfaces that gatekeep research from the rest of the team
• Fragmented ecosystems - Separate tools for recruitment, testing, and analysis that don't talk to each other
• Data in silos - Insights trapped study-by-study with no way to search across everything
• Zero integration - Platforms that force you to abandon your workflow instead of fitting into it

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These platforms haven't changed because they don't have to, so we set out to challenge them.

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Our Answer: A Complete Ecosystem for Research Velocity

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Optimal 3.0 isn't an incremental update to the old way of doing things. It's a fundamental rethinking of what a research platform should be.

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Research For All, Not Just Researchers.

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For 18 years, we've believed research should be accessible to everyone, not just specialists. Optimal 3.0 takes that principle further.

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Unlimited seats. Zero gatekeeping.

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Designers can validate concepts without waiting for research bandwidth. PMs can test assumptions without learning specialist tools. Marketers can gather feedback without procurement nightmares. Research shouldn't be rationed by licenses or complexity. It should be a shared capability across your entire team.

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A Complete Ecosystem in One Place.

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Stop stitching together point solutions.Optimal 3.0 gives you everything you need in one platform:

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Recruitment Built In Access millions of verified participants worldwide without the vendor tag. Target by demographics, behaviors, and custom screeners. Launch studies in minutes, not days. No endless email chains. No procurement delays.

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Learn more about Recruitment

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Testing That Adapts to You

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• Live Site Testing: Test any URL, your production site, staging, or competitors, without code or developer dependencies
• Prototype Testing: Connect Figma and go from design to insights in minutes
• Mobile Testing: Native screen recordings that capture the real user experience
• Enhanced Traditional Methods: Card sorting, tree testing, first-click tests, the methodologically sound foundations we built our reputation on

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Learn more about Live Site Testing

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AI-Powered Analysis (With Control) Interview analysis used to take weeks. We've reduced it to minutes.

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Our AI automatically identifies themes, surfaces key quotes, and generates summaries, while you maintain full control over the analysis.

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As one researcher told us: "What took me 4 weeks to manually analyze now took me 5 minutes."

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This isn't about replacing researcher judgment. It's about amplifying it. The AI handles the busywork, tagging, organizing, timestamping. You handle the strategic thinking and judgment calls. That's where your value actually lives.

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Learn more about Optimal Interviews

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Chat Across All Your Data Your research data is now conversational.

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Ask questions and get answers instantly, backed by actual video evidence from your studies. Query across multiple Interview studies at once. Share findings with stakeholders complete with supporting clips.

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Every insight comes with the receipts. Because stakeholders don't just need insights, they need proof.

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A Dashboard Built for Velocity See all your studies, all your data, in one place. Track progress across your entire team. Jump from question to insight in seconds. Research velocity starts with knowing what you have.

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Explore the new dashboard

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Integration Layer

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Optimal 3.0 fits your workflow. It doesn't dominate it. We integrate with the tools you already use, Figma, Slack, your existing tech stack, because research shouldn't force you to abandon how you work.

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What Didn't Change: Methodological Rigor

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Here's what we didn't do: abandon the foundations that made teams trust us.

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Card sorting, tree testing, first-click tests, surveys, the methodologically sound tools that Amazon, Google, Netflix, and HSBC have relied on for years are all still here. Better than ever.

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We didn't replace our roots. We built on them.

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18 years of research methodology, amplified by modern AI and unified in a complete ecosystem.

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Why This Matters Now

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Product development isn't slowing down. AI is accelerating everything. Competitors are moving faster. Customer expectations are higher than ever.

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Research can either be a bottleneck or an accelerator.

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The difference is having a platform that:

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• Makes research accessible to everyone (not just specialists)
• Provides a complete ecosystem (not fragmented point solutions)
• Amplifies judgment with AI (instead of replacing it)
• Integrates with workflows (instead of forcing new ones)
• Lets you search across all your data (not trapped in silos)

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Optimal 3.0 is built for research that arrives before the decision is made. Research that shapes products, not just documents them. Research that helps teams ship confidently because they asked users first.

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A Fresh Alternative

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We're not trying to be the biggest platform in the market.

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We're trying to be the best alternative to the clunky tools that have dominated for years.

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Amazon, Google, Netflix, Uber, Apple, Workday, they didn't choose us because we're the incumbent. They chose us because we make research accessible, fast, and actionable.

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"Overall, each release feels like the platform is getting better." — Lead Product Designer at Flo

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"The one research platform I keep coming back to." — G2 Review

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What's Next

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This launch represents our biggest transformation, but it's not the end. It's a new beginning.

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We're continuing to invest in:

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• AI capabilities that amplify (not replace) researcher judgment
• Platform integrations that fit your workflow
• Methodological innovations that maintain rigor while increasing speed
• Features that make research accessible to everyone

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Our goal is simple: make user research so fast and accessible that it becomes impossible not to include users in every decision.

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See What We've Built

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If you're evaluating research platforms and tired of the same old clunky tools, we'd love to show you the alternative.

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Book a demo or start a free trial

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The platform that turns "should we?" into "we did."

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Welcome to Optimal 3.0.

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Maze has built a strong reputation for rapid prototype testing and quick design validation. For product teams focused on speed and Figma integration, it offers an appealing workflow. But as research programs mature and teams need deeper insights to inform strategic decisions, many discover that Maze's limitations create friction. Platform reliability issues, restricted research depth, and a narrow focus on unmoderated testing leave gaps that growing teams can't afford.

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If you're exploring Maze alternatives that deliver both speed and substance, here are seven platforms worth evaluating.

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Why Look for a Maze Alternative?

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Teams typically start searching for Maze alternatives when they encounter these constraints:

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• ‍Limited research depth: Maze does well at at surface-level feedback on prototypes but struggles with the qualitative depth needed for strategic product decisions. Teams often supplement Maze with additional tools for interviews, surveys, or advanced analysis.
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• ‍Platform stability concerns: Users report inconsistent reliability, particularly with complex prototypes and enterprise-scale studies. When research drives major business decisions, platform dependability becomes critical.
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• ‍Narrow testing scope: While Maze handles prototype validation well, it lacks sophistication in other research methods and the ability to do deep analytics. These are all things that comprehensive product development requires. 
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• Enterprise feature gaps: Organizations with compliance requirements, global research needs, or complex team structures find Maze's enterprise offerings lacking. SSO, role-based access and dedicated support come only at the highest tiers, if at all.
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• Surface-level analysis and reporting capabilities: Once an organization reaches a certain stage, they start needing in-depth analysis and results visualizations. Maze currently only provides basic metrics and surface-level analysis without the depth required for strategic decision-making or comprehensive user insight.

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What to Consider When Choosing a Maze Alternative

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Before committing to a new platform, evaluate these key factors:

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• ‍Range of research methods: Does the platform support your full research lifecycle? Look for tools that handle prototype testing, information architecture validation, live site testing, surveys, and qualitative analysis.
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• Analysis and insight generation: Surface-level metrics tell only part of the story. Platforms with AI-powered analysis, automated reporting, and sophisticated visualizations transform raw data into actionable business intelligence.
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• Participant recruitment capabilities: Consider both panel size and quality. Global reach, precise targeting, fraud prevention, and verification processes determine whether your research reflects real user perspectives.
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• Enterprise readiness: For organizations with compliance requirements, evaluate security certifications (SOC 2, ISO), SSO support, role-based permissions, and dedicated account management.
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• Platform reliability and support: Research drives product strategy. Choose platforms with proven stability, comprehensive documentation, and responsive support that ensures your research operations run smoothly.
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• Scalability and team collaboration: As research programs grow, platforms should accommodate multiple concurrent studies, cross-functional collaboration, and shared workspaces without performance degradation.

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Top Alternatives to Maze

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1. Optimal: Comprehensive User Insights Platform That Scales

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All-in-one research platform from discovery through delivery

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Optimal delivers end-to-end research capabilities that teams commonly piece together from multiple tools. Optimal supports the complete research lifecycle: participant recruitment, prototype testing, live site testing, card sorting, tree testing, surveys, and AI-powered interview analysis.

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Where Optimal outperforms Maze:

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Broader research methods: Optimal provides specialized tools and in-depth analysis and visualizations that Maze simply doesn't offer. Card sorting and tree testing validate information architecture before you build. Live site testing lets you evaluate actual websites and applications without code, enabling continuous optimization post-launch. This breadth means teams can conduct comprehensive research without switching platforms or compromising study quality.

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Deeper qualitative insights: Optimal's new Interviews tool revolutionizes how teams extract value from user research. Upload interview videos and AI automatically surfaces key themes, generates smart highlight reels with timestamped evidence, and produces actionable insights in hours instead of weeks. Every insight comes with supporting video evidence, making stakeholder buy-in effortless.

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AI-powered analysis: While Maze provides basic metrics and surface-level reporting, Optimal delivers sophisticated AI analysis that automatically generates insights, identifies patterns, and creates export-ready reports. This transforms research from data collection into strategic intelligence.

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Global participant recruitment: Access to over 100 million verified participants across 150+ countries enables sophisticated targeting for any demographic or market. Optimal's fraud prevention and quality assurance processes ensure participant authenticity, something teams consistently report as problematic with Maze's smaller panel.

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Enterprise-grade reliability: Optimal serves Fortune 500 companies including Netflix, LEGO, and Apple with SOC 2 compliance, SSO, role-based permissions, and dedicated enterprise support. The platform was built for scale, not retrofitted for it.

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Best for: UX researchers, design and product teams, and enterprise organizations requiring comprehensive research capabilities, deeper insights, and proven enterprise reliability.

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2. UserTesting: Enterprise Video Feedback at Scale

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Established platform for moderated and unmoderated usability testing

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UserTesting remains one of the most recognized platforms for gathering video feedback from participants. It excels at capturing user reactions and verbal feedback during task completion.

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Strengths: Large participant pool with strong demographic filters, robust support for moderated sessions and live interviews, integrations with Figma and Miro.

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Limitations: Significantly higher cost at enterprise scale, less flexible for navigation testing or survey-driven research compared to platforms like Optimal, increasingly complex UI following multiple acquisitions (UserZoom, Validately) creates usability issues.

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Best for: Large enterprises prioritizing high-volume video feedback and willing to invest in premium pricing for moderated session capabilities.

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3. Lookback: Deep Qualitative Discovery

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Live moderated sessions with narrative insights

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Lookback specializes in live user interviews and moderated testing sessions, emphasizing rich qualitative feedback over quantitative metrics.

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Strengths: Excellent for in-depth qualitative discovery, strong recording and note-taking features, good for teams prioritizing narrative insights over metrics.

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Limitations: Narrow focus on moderated research limits versatility, lacks quantitative testing methods, smaller participant pool requires external recruitment for most studies.

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Best for: Research teams conducting primarily qualitative discovery work and willing to manage recruitment separately.

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4. PlaybookUX: Bundled Recruitment and Testing

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Built-in participant panel for streamlined research

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PlaybookUX combines usability testing with integrated participant recruitment, appealing to teams wanting simplified procurement.

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Strengths: Bundled recruitment reduces vendor management, straightforward pricing model, decent for basic unmoderated studies.

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Limitations: Limited research method variety compared to comprehensive platforms, smaller panel size restricts targeting options, basic analysis capabilities require manual synthesis.

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Best for: Small teams needing recruitment and basic testing in one package without advanced research requirements.

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5. Lyssna: Rapid UI Pattern Validation

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Quick-turn preference testing and first-click studies

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Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub) focuses on fast, lightweight tests for design validation; preference tests, first-click tests, and five-second tests.

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Strengths: Fast turnaround for simple validation, intuitive interface, affordable entry point for small teams.

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Limitations: Limited scope beyond basic design feedback, small participant panel with quality control issues, lacks sophisticated analysis or enterprise features.

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Best for: Designers running lightweight validation tests on UI patterns and early-stage concepts.

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6. Hotjar: Behavioral Analytics and Heatmaps

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Quantitative behavior tracking with qualitative context

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Hotjar specializes in on-site behavior analytics; heatmaps, session recordings, and feedback widgets that reveal how users interact with live websites.

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Strengths: Valuable behavioral data from actual site visitors, seamless integration with existing websites, combines quantitative patterns with qualitative feedback.

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Limitations: Focuses on post-launch observation rather than pre-launch validation, doesn't support prototype testing or information architecture validation, requires separate tools for recruitment-based research.

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Best for: Teams optimizing live websites and wanting to understand actual user behavior patterns post-launch.

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7. UserZoom: Enterprise Research at Global Scale

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Comprehensive platform for large research organizations

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UserZoom (now part of UserTesting) targets enterprise research programs requiring governance, global reach, and sophisticated study design.

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Strengths: Extensive research methods and study templates, strong enterprise governance features, supports complex global research operations.

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Limitations: Significantly higher cost than Maze or comparable platforms, complex interface with steep learning curve, integration with UserTesting creates platform uncertainty.

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Best for: Global research teams at large enterprises with complex governance requirements and substantial research budgets.

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Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Maze Alternative

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Maze serves a specific need: rapid prototype validation for design-focused teams. But as research programs mature and insights drive strategic decisions, teams need platforms that deliver depth alongside speed.

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Optimal stands out by combining Maze's prototype testing capabilities with the comprehensive research methods, AI-powered analysis, and enterprise reliability that growing teams require. Whether you're validating information architecture through card sorting, testing live websites without code, or extracting insights from interview videos, Optimal provides the depth and breadth that transforms research from validation into strategic advantage.

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If you're evaluating Maze alternatives, consider what your research program needs six months from now, not just today. The right platform scales with your team, deepens your insights, and becomes more valuable as your research practice matures.

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Try Optimal for free to experience how comprehensive research capabilities transform user insights from validation into strategic intelligence.

How to Know When Your Current Tool Is Holding You Back

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Your research platform should accelerate insights, not create obstacles. Yet many enterprise research teams are discovering their tools weren't built for the scale, velocity, and quality standards that today’s product development demands.

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If you're experiencing any of these five warning signs, it might be time to evaluate alternatives.

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1. Your Research Team Is Creating Internal Queues

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The Challenge: When platforms limit concurrent studies, research becomes a first-come-first-served bottleneck and urgent research gets delayed by scheduled projects. In fast-moving businesses, research velocity directly impacts competitiveness. Every queued study is a delayed product launch, a missed market opportunity, or a competitor gaining ground.

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The Solution: Enterprise-grade research platforms allow unlimited concurrent studies. Multiple teams can research simultaneously without coordination overhead or artificial constraints. Organizations that remove study volume constraints report 3-4x increases in research velocity within the first quarter of switching platforms.

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2. Pricing Has Become Unpredictable 

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The Problem: When pricing gest too complicated, it becomes unpredictable. Some businesses have per-participant fees, usage caps and seat limits not to mention other hidden charges. Many pricing models weren't designed for enterprise-scale research, they were designed to maximize per-transaction revenue. When you can't predict research costs, you can't plan research roadmaps. Teams start rationing participants, avoiding "expensive" audiences, or excluding stakeholders from platform access to control costs.

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The Solution: Transparent, scalable pricing with unlimited seats that grows with your needs.  Volume-based plans that reward research investment rather than penalizing growth. No hidden per-participant markups. 

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3. Participant Quality Is Declining

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The Problem: This is the most dangerous sign because it corrupts insights at the source. Low-quality participants create low-quality data, which creates poor product decisions.

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Warning signs include:

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• Participants using AI assistance during moderated sessions
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• Bot-like response patterns in surveys
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• Participants who clearly don't meet screening criteria
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• Low-effort responses that provide no actionable insight
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• Increasing "throw away this response" rates in your analysis

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Poor participant quality isn't just frustrating, it's expensive. Research with the wrong participants produces misleading insights that derail product strategy, waste development resources, and damage market positioning.

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The Solution: Multi-layer fraud prevention systems. Behavioral verification. AI-response detection. Real-time quality monitoring. 100% quality guarantees backed by participant replacement policies. When product, design and research teams work with brands that offer 100% participant quality guarantees, they know that they can trust their research and make real business decisions from their insights. 

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4. You Can't Reach Your Actual Target Audience

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The Problem: Limited panel reach forces compromises. Example: You need B2B software buyers but you get anyone who's used software. Research with "close enough" participants produces insights that don't apply to your actual market. Product decisions based on proxy audiences fail in real-world application.

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The solution: Tools like Optimal that offer 10M+ participants across 150+ countries with genuine niche targeting capabilities. Proven Australian market coverage from broad demographics to specialized B2B audiences. Advanced screening beyond basic demographics.

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5. Your Platform Hasn't Evolved with Your Needs

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The Problem: You chose your platform 3-5 years ago when you were a smaller team with simpler needs. But your organization has grown, research has become more strategic, and your platform's limitations are now organizational constraints. Platform limitations become organizational limitations. When your tools can't support enterprise workflows, your research function can't deliver enterprise value.

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The Solution: Complete research lifecycle support from recruitment to analysis. AI-powered insight generation. Enterprise-grade security and compliance. Dedicated support and onboarding. Integration ecosystems that connect research across your organization.

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Why Enterprises Are Switching to Optimal

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Leading product, design and research teams are moving to Optimal because it's specifically built to address the pain points outlined above:

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1. No Study Volume Constraints: Run unlimited concurrent studies across your entire organization
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2. Transparent, Scalable Pricing: Flexible plans with unlimited seats and predictable costs
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3. Verified Quality Guarantee: 10M+ participants with multi-layer fraud prevention and 100% quality guarantee
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4. Enterprise-Grade Platform: Complete research lifecycle tools, AI-powered insights, dedicated support

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Next Steps 

If you're experiencing any of these five signs, it's worth exploring alternatives. The cost of continuing with inadequate tools, delayed launches, poor data quality, limited research capacity, far outweigh the effort of evaluation.

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Start a Free Trial – Test Optimal with your real research projects

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Compare Platforms – See detailed capability comparisons

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Talk to Our Team – Discuss your specific research needs with Australian experts

When evaluating tools for user testing and participant recruitment, Askable often appears on the shortlist, especially for teams based in Australia and New Zealand. But in 2025, many researchers are finding Askable’s limitations increasingly difficult to work around: restricted study volume, inconsistent participant quality, and new pricing that limits flexibility.

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If you’re exploring Askable alternatives that offer more scalability, higher data quality, and global reach, here are five strong options.

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1. Optimal: Best Overall Alternative for Scalable, AI-Powered Research 

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Optimal is a comprehensive user insights platform supporting the full research lifecycle, from participant recruitment to analysis and reporting. Unlike Askable, which has historically focused on recruitment, Optimal unifies multiple research methods in one platform, including prototype testing, card sorting, tree testing, and AI-assisted interviews.

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Why teams switch from Askable to Optimal

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1. You can only run one study at a time in Askable

‍Optimal removes that bottleneck, letting you launch multiple concurrent studies across teams and research methods.

2. Askable’s new pricing limits flexibility 

Optimal offers scalable plans with unlimited seats, so teams only pay for what they need.

3. Askable’s participant quality has dropped

Optimal provides access to over 100+ million verified participants worldwide, with strong fraud-prevention and screening systems that eliminate low-effort or AI-assisted responses.

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Additional advantages

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• End-to-end research tools in one workspace
• AI-powered insight generation that tags and summarizes automatically
• Enterprise-grade reliability with decade-long market trust
• Dedicated onboarding and SLA-backed support
  
  

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Best for: Teams seeking an enterprise-ready, scalable research platform that eliminates the operational constraints of Askable.

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2. UserTesting: Best for Video-Based Moderated Studies

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‍UserTesting remains one of the most established platforms for moderated and unmoderated usability testing. It excels at gathering video feedback from participants in real time.

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Pros:

• Large participant pool with strong demographic filters
• Supports moderated sessions and live interviews
• Integrations with design tools like Figma and Miro

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Cons:

• Higher cost at enterprise scale
• Less flexible for survey-driven or unmoderated studies compared with Optimal
• The UI has become increasingly complex and buggy as UserTesting has been expanding their platform through acquisitions such as UserZoom and Validately.
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Best for: Companies prioritizing live, moderated usability sessions.

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3. Maze: Best for Product Teams Using Figma Prototypes

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‍Maze offers seamless Figma integration and focuses on automating prototype-testing workflows for product and design teams.

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Pros:

• Excellent Figma and Adobe XD integration
• Automated reporting
• Good fit for early-stage design validation

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Cons:

• Limited depth for qualitative research
• Smaller participant pool
  
  

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Best for: Design-first teams validating prototypes and navigation flows.

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4. Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub): Best for Fast Design Feedback

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‍Lyssna focuses on quick-turn, unmoderated studies such as preference tests, first-click tests, and five-second tests.

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Pros:

• Fast turnaround
• Simple, intuitive interface
• Affordable for smaller teams

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Cons:

• Limited participant targeting options
• Narrower study types than Askable

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Best for: Designers and researchers running lightweight validation tests.

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5. Dovetail: Best for Research Repository and Analysis

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‍‍Dovetail is primarily a qualitative data repository rather than a testing platform. It’s useful for centralizing and analyzing insights from research studies conducted elsewhere.

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Pros:

• Strong tagging and note-taking features
• Centralized research hub for large teams

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Cons:

• Doesn’t recruit participants or run studies
• Requires manual uploads from other tools like Askable or UserTesting
  
  

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Best for: Research teams centralizing insights from multiple sources.

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Final Thoughts on Alternatives to Askable

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If your goal is simply to recruit local participants, Askable can still meet basic needs. But if you’re looking to scale research in your organization, integrate testing and analysis, and automate insights, Optimal stands out as the best long-term investment. Its blend of global reach, AI-powered analysis, and proven enterprise support makes it the natural next step for growing research teams. You can try Optimal for free here.

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Why Your Best Insights Never Make It Into Products

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Does this sound familiar? Your research teams spend weeks uncovering user insights. Your Product teams spend months building features users don't want. Between these two realities lies one of the most expensive problems in product development. 

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According to a 2024 Forrester study, 73% of product decisions are made without any customer insight, despite 89% of companies investing in user research. This is not because of a lack of research, but instead because of a broken translation process between discovery and delivery.

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This gap isn't just about communication, it's structural. Researchers speak in themes, patterns, and user needs. Product managers speak in features, priorities, and business outcomes. Designers speak in experiences and interfaces. Each discipline has its own language, timelines, and success metrics.

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The biggest challenge isn't conducting research, it's making sure that research actually influences what gets built. 

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Why Good Research Dies in Translation: 

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• Research operates in 2-4 week cycles. Product decisions happen in real-time. By the time findings are synthesized and presented, the moment for influence has passed.
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• A 40-slide research report is nobody's idea of actionable. According to Nielsen Norman Group research, product managers spend an average of 12 minutes reviewing research findings, yet the average research report takes 2 hours to fully digest.
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• Individual insights lack context. Was this problem mentioned by 1 user or 20? Is it a dealbreaker or a minor annoyance? Without this context, teams can't prioritize effectively.

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The most successful product teams don't just conduct research, they create processes and systems that bridge the gap between research and product including doing more continuous discovery and connecting research insights into actual product updates.

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• Teams doing continuous discovery make 3x more research-informed decisions than those doing quarterly research sprints. This becomes more achievable when the entire product trio (PM, designer, researcher) is involved in ongoing discovery.
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• Product and research teams need to work together to connect research insights directly to potential features. Mapping each insight to product opportunities, which map to experiments, which feed directly into the roadmap.
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Recent research from Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute revealed that AI-driven interfaces created 2.6 times more usability issues for older adults and 3.2 times more issues for users with disabilities compared to general populations, a gap that often goes undetected without specific testing for these groups.

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The Optimal Approach: Design with Evidence, Not Assumptions

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The future of product development isn't just about doing more continuous research, it's about making research integral to how decisions happen:

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• Start with Questions, Not Studies. Before launching research, collaborate with product teams to identify specific decisions that need informing. What will change based on what you learn?
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• Embed Researchers in Roadmap Planning. Research findings should be part of sprint planning, roadmap reviews, and OKR setting.
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• Measure Research Impact.: Track not just what research you do, but what decisions it influences. Amplitude found that teams measuring "research-informed feature success rate" show 35% higher user satisfaction scores.

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The question you need to ask your organization isn't whether your research is good enough. It's whether your research to product collaboration process is strong enough to ensure those insights actually shape what gets built.

Are we exaggerating when we say that the way the researchers run and analyze user interviews hasn’t changed in 20 years? We don’t think so. When we talk to our customers to try and understand their current workflows, they look exactly the same as they did when we started this business 17 years ago: record, transcribe, analyze manually, create reports. See the problem?

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Despite  advances in technology across every industry, the fundamental process of conducting and analyzing user interviews has remained largely unchanged. While we've transformed how we design, develop, and deploy products, the way we understand our users is still trapped in workflows that would feel familiar to product, design and research teams from decades ago.

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The Same Old Interview Analysis Workflow 

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For most researchers, in the best case scenario, Interview analysis can take several hours over the span of multiple days. Yet in that same timeframe, in part thanks to new and emerging AI tools, an engineering team can design, build, test, and deploy new features. That just doesn't make sense.

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The problem isn't that researchers  lack tools. It's that they haven’t had the right ones. Most tools focus on transcription and storage, treating interviews like static documents rather than dynamic sources of intelligence. Testing with just 5 users can uncover 85% of usability problems, yet most teams struggle to complete even basic analysis in time to influence product decisions. Luckily, things are finally starting to change.

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When it comes to user research, three things are happening in the industry right now that are forcing a transformation:

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1. The rise of AI means UX research matters more than ever. With AI accelerating product development cycles, the cost of building the wrong thing has never been higher. Companies that invest in UX early cut development time by 33-50%, and with AI, that advantage compounds exponentially.
2. We're drowning in data and have fewer resources.  We’re seeing the need for UX research increase, while simultaneously UX research teams are more resource constrained than ever. Tasks like analyzing hours of video content to gather insights, just isn’t something teams have time for anymore. 
3. AI finally understands research. AI has evolved to a place where it can actually provide valuable insights. Not just transcription. Real research intelligence that recognizes patterns, emotions, and the gap between what users say and what they actually mean.

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A Dirty Little Research Secret + A Solution 

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We’re just going to say it; most user insights from interviews never make it past the recording stage. When it comes to talking to users, the vast majority of researchers in our audience talk about recruiting pain because the most commonly discussed challenge around interviews is usually finding enough participants who match their criteria. But on top of the challenge of finding the right people to talk to, there’s another challenge that’s even worse: finding time to analyze what users tell us. But, what if you had a tool where using AI, the moment you uploaded an interview video, key themes, pain points, and opportunities surfaced automatically? What if you could ask your interview footage questions and get back evidence-based answers with video citations?

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This isn't about replacing human expertise, it's about augmenting  it. AI-powered tools can process and categorize data within hours or days, significantly reducing workload. But more importantly, they can surface patterns and connections that human analysts might miss when rushing through analysis under deadline pressure. Thanks to AI, we're witnessing the beginning of a research renaissance and a big part of that is reimagining the way we do user interviews.

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Why AI for User Interviews is a Game Changer 

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When interview analysis accelerates from weeks to hours, everything changes.

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Product teams can validate ideas before building them. Design teams can test concepts in real-time. Engineering teams can prioritize features based on actual user need, not assumptions. Product, Design and Research teams who embrace AI to help with these workflows, will be surfacing insights, generating evidence-backed recommendations, and influencing product decisions at the speed of thought.

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We know that 32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience. Talking to your users more often makes it possible to prevent these experiences by acting on user feedback before problems become critical. When every user insight comes with video evidence, when every recommendation links to supporting clips, when every user story includes the actual user telling it, research stops being opinion and becomes impossible to ignore. When you can more easily gather, analyze and share the content from user interviews those real user voices start to get referenced in executive meetings. Product decisions begin to include user clips. Engineering sprints start to reference actual user needs. Marketing messages reflect real user voices and language.

The best product, design and research teams are already looking for tools that can support this transformation. They know that when interviews become intelligent, the entire organization becomes more user-centric. At Optimal, we're focused on improving the traditional user interviews workflow by incorporating revolutionary AI features into our tools. Stay tuned for exciting updates on how we're reimagining user interviews.