User Experience Testing Tools: Improving Website Usability For SEO

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on user experience testing tools. In today’s digital landscape, providing a seamless user experience is crucial for the success of any website or application. In this article, we will delve into user experience testing and explore tools to evaluate and optimize the user experience of your digital products. Whether you’re a designer, developer, or product manager, these tools will empower you to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions to enhance user satisfaction. Let’s dive in and discover the key user experience testing tools that can take your digital presence to the next level.

Types of Usability Testing

Before signing up for a usability testing tool, look for one that accommodates your team’s usability testing methods. Here’s a quick reminder of the different types of usability testing:

Quantitative or qualitative

Quantitative research gives you usable results via numbers and statistics, while qualitative research is about words and meaning. It gives you the ‘why’ behind the numbers.

Moderated or unmoderated

Moderated testing involves a researcher present during the test—they may instruct the participant or ask questions. Unmoderated usability testing is conducted without the researcher present.

Remote or in-person

Remote usability testing occurs virtually, with researchers and participants in different locations. Meanwhile, in-person testing takes place in the same location. You can run usability tests in-person or remotely without specialized software, but a dedicated usability testing tool simplifies reporting and decision-making.

13 Best User Experience Testing Tools

Maze

Best for usability testing and continuous product discovery.

Maze is a continuous product discovery platform that empowers teams to collect and consume user insights. It’s ideal for testing at each stage of the design process—and even after you’ve launched your tool, with Live Website Testing.

Maze offers integrations with Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, and Sketch so your team can import an existing prototype from their preferred design tool. The platform includes pre-made templates to get you started and help your team run in-depth quantitative and qualitative usability tests that research participants can easily access.

You’ll also be able to auto-generate a user-friendly usability test report to share with anyone on your team through a link or PDF. This instant reporting functionality means your team won’t spend hours finding key usability metrics like completion rates, misclick rates, or time spent.

Key Features:

• Prototype testing and concept validation: To catch usability and design issues before you spend money developing the wrong thing.
• First-click testing and heatmaps: To see what your user resonates with and click on your website or app
• Preference testing and A/B tests: To validate ideas and designs, and understand preferences
• Surveys: To collect in-depth qualitative insights and get to know your users
• Clips: Record your users’ screen, audio, and video—to better learn what your test participants think and how they act when completing your tasks
• Reach: To organize and segment your users and test participants in one place—and reach out to them to ask them to complete future tests.
• Panel: To access thousands of pre-screened participants, recruit users, and get answers to your tests in hours
• Guerilla testing, card sorting, and wireframe testing: To validate information architecture and test your prototype with real users
• Live website testing: To research your published site and gather post-launch insights from real users

Pricing:

• The free plan allows you to review up to 300 responses per year. Paid plans start at $75/month for 3 seats and 1,800 viewable responses per year. Maze also offers an Enterprise plan to suit your organizational needs.

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Uxcam

Best for mobile and web experience analytics with session replay.

Uxcam is a unified experience analytics platform that helps product and design teams understand exactly how users interact with mobile and web applications. It combines automatic session replays, heatmaps, and user-journey tracking to help you pinpoint friction, optimize flows, and enhance engagement in real time.

Key Features:

• Session replay: Watch full user sessions to see taps, swipes, and navigation patterns.
• Heatmaps: Visualize tap density, scroll behavior, and gesture hotspots to uncover UX issues at a glance.
• User journeys & funnels: Track multi-step flows and conversion funnels to identify drop-off points and optimize paths.
• Issue analytics: Capture crashes, errors, and rage taps with automatic alerts and contextual session context.
• Custom event & segmentation: Define events, segment by device, OS, or user property, and drill into behavior cohorts.
• Privacy-compliant SDK: Lightweight mobile SDK with sensitive-data masking to ensure PII never leaves the device.
• Integrations & exports: Connect with your analytics stack (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel) and export data for deeper analysis.

Pricing:

• The free plan offers 3,000 sessions/month with basic replay, filters, and data retention—no credit card. Starter includes 10k sessions, analytics, replay, and heatmaps. Growth adds integrations, journey analytics, monitoring, and support. Enterprise adds multi-org, SSO, exports, and a success manager.

Lookback

Best for screen recording and collaborative insights.

Lookback is a user experience (UX) screen recording tool for designers and product managers who want to see how users interact with their applications. Lookback’s testing tools let your team see what users see and capture their reactions in real time—through recordings.

Lookback promotes team collaboration by allowing researchers to invite others from the product team to view the test, leave comments, and tag others on an internal hub—without disrupting the participant’s progress.

Key Features:

• Screen recording: Put yourself in the users’ shoes and see how they completed your tasks
• Live sharing: Collaborate and comment on live interviews without interrupting the session
• Analytics: Review the most relevant qualitative customer insights on a centralized dashboard
• Save all recordings in the player: Ask your team to tag each interview so anyone can log in and rewatch any relevant session.

Pricing:

• Lookback offers a 60-day free trial on all plans after you’ve signed up for an account.
• Pricing for team plans starts at $149/month with limited sessions but unlimited collaborators.

Also Read: Analytics Tools: Measuring and Analyzing Marketing Performance

UXArmy

Best for Moderated and Un-moderated Testing.

UXArmy lets you test prototypes, live websites, mobile apps, and information architectures using a single platform. You can recruit your own participants or tap into UXArmy’s global panel via pay‑as‑you‑go credits, ensuring you reach the right audiences in 15+ languages with auto‑translation and transcription support.

Key features:

• Unmoderated Usability Testing: Run tests on prototypes, websites, and mobile apps without live facilitation, then watch screen‑recorded sessions to understand user behavior.
• Moderated Research: Conduct live video interviews with note‑taking, group chat for observers, and private NDA agreements to capture rich qualitative feedback.
• Task Logic & Branching: Create dynamic test flows that adapt based on participant responses to uncover deeper insights into user decision paths.
• AI Summary & Auto Transcriptions: Generate concise summaries, timestamped verbatim, and sentiment breakdowns in over 25 languages to cut analysis time by up to 50%.
• Heatmaps & Navigation Paths: Visualize click density and user journeys across screens to identify friction points and optimize information architecture.
• Participant Recruitment & Panels: Recruit self‑sourced users or purchase panel credits for instant access to pre‑screened participants matching your target demographics.
• Collaboration Tools: Use shared workspaces, role‑based permissions, in‑video annotations, and highlight reels to align stakeholders around user insights.

Pricing:

• UXArmy’s pricing starts with a Free plan—one seat and 20 credits—for running basic tests. The $29/month Starter tier adds video recordings, AI insights, and panel access.
• The Pro plan is $99/month (annual billing) for three seats, 70 credits, shared workspaces, and role‑based permissions. Enterprise pricing is custom.

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UXtweak

Best for diversified user research.

UXtweak is an all-in-one tool for collecting user feedback on a website’s performance. This platform allows you to examine how customers interact with a digital product, improve customer journey, dispel usability issues, and tailor the product to client expectations. A major advantage of this tool is its universality – you can use it throughout all development phases for mobile, web, or application design. 

Key Features:

• Website usability testing: Moderated and unmoderated tests to improve the user journey and ease of use of your website or application. 
• Card sorting & Tree testing: Conduct A/B tests and optimize your digital product’s information architecture based on user expectations. 
• Mobile testing: Test for mobile by measuring users’ activities in your mobile app, website, or prototype. 
• Prototype testing: Effectively evaluate design flows and user interactions with design prototypes (with Figma and Invision integrations).
• Emphasizing with users: Employ preference and five-second testing alongside surveys and session recordings to better understand the wants and needs of target users. 
• User Panel: For trustworthy research results, UXtweak’s User Panel helps you employ reliable participants from more than 130 countries. 

Pricing:

• Thanks to UXtweak’s free Starter Plan, you can try out every feature for an unlimited time to make sure the tool is exactly what you need.
• Paid plans start from $99/month with discounts for annual billing. The company also offers tailored solutions for startups and enterprises.

UserTesting

Best for moderated user tests.

UserTesting offers customer experience (CX) solutions for designers, product managers, marketers, and executives. It lets your team see, hear, and interact with customers as they use websites, applications, or prototypes during moderated testing sessions.

While the platform offers a mix of moderated and unmoderated testing solutions, its main focus is on user interviews. UserTesting has one of the largest participant pools on the market—but you do pay extra to test your tool on pre-screened and qualified users.

Key Features:

Card sorting, tree testing, usability testing, and prototype testing: So your team can run a variety of tests using the same platform:

• Template library: To shorten the time your team spends creating each test
• Quick Answers: Recruit from the UserTesting panel and get answers to your tests in hours
• Sentiment analysis: This automated testing tool uses AI to simplify the reporting process and identify repeated pain points
• Human Insights platform: Allows your team to visualize data, read and highlight video transcripts, and get an automated summary of insights

Pricing:

• UserTesting doesn’t publicly share costs, but users have reported prices starting at $15,000 per seat per year.

Optimal Workshop

Best for basic usability testing methods.

Optimal Workshop offers usability testing functionality limited to task completion and moderated sessions. Your team can use Optimal Workshop to test information architecture (IA) and create tasks for users to complete. Its feature set includes tools for card sorting, tree testing, and first-click testing.

Key Features:

• Card sorting, tree testing, online surveys, and first-click testing: To test your platform in multiple ways and spot usability or UX issues
• Qualitative research: Paint a full picture of how your users feel about your product and gather both qualitative and quantitative data
• Automated analysis: Improve your team’s productivity by giving them access to a tool that automates data analysis

Pricing:

• The free plan lets you explore all the features of Optimal Workshop tools, with session and template limitations.
• Paid plans start at $208 per user/month and include a 2-month free trial.

UsabilityHub

Best for pay-per-answer remote research.

UsabilityHub is a remote user research platform that allows teams to run various tests and identify usability issues. The UsabilityHub platform is known for its first-click tests, design surveys, preference tests, and five-second tests.

It also has a built-in participants panel with over 170,000 testers available on demand at a pay-per-answer price. Alternatively, researchers can invite existing users to participate.

Key Features:

• Surveys, five-second, first-clicks, prototype, or preference tests: Run multiple unmoderated and moderated tests
• Design surveys: Ask questions regarding your design to identify specific issues with your visuals
• Unlimited participants: You can recruit as many participants as you like from your audience—or pay extra to access the UsabilityHub participant panel.
• Reporting: Includes click visualizations, open text analysis, and task duration metrics

Pricing:

• You can run free tests for up to 2 minutes, or upgrade to paid plans starting at $75/month for 3 seats.

Loop11

A good usability testing alternative.

Loop11 is a popular online usability tool that lets you run website, A/B, and prototype testing. It uses GPT-4 to create AI-powered summaries, audio transcripts, and reports. It also offers a range of video, audio, and screen recording features.

Key Features:

• A/B testing, prototype testing, competitive benchmarking, true intent studies, and IA: Utilize multiple different testing methods for qualitative and quantitative data
• Screen recording: Get your team to see what your user sees and does on your platform
• AI-powered insights: If you’re happy leaving the analytics to AI, Loop11 boasts AI-powered insights to increase efficiency

Pricing:

• Pricing ranges from $199 to $599/month. All plans include a 14-day free trial, and users can choose to subscribe for one month at a time or access a 10% discount with an annual subscription.

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Userfeel

Best for sporadic testing.

Userfeel is a usability testing tool that’s ideal if you don’t want to conduct regular usability tests, as you don’t need to pay for a monthly subscription—you can pay when needed. Of course, this does mean it can add up without you noticing. Userfeel lets your team set up a list of tasks for users to complete on your website, define the target audience, and collect recorded videos of users.

Key Features:

• Transcriptions: Shorten the time your team spends rewatching live interviews
• Unlimited screening questions: Encourage your team to ask as many screeners as needed so you get users who truly fit your customer’s persona
• Highlight reels: Your team will be able to create a short video using the most relevant clips so you can rewatch it and catch the user’s sentiment
• User test guarantee: Get a free replacement if you consider a user unfit for your tests

Pricing:

• Userfeel charges per test length and type. Its prices start at $30/hour-long unmoderated session with current users.
• Prices go up to $180/hour for moderated or unmoderated sessions with a user from the Userfeel panel.

Trymata

Best for testing your customer’s journey.

Trymata (formerly TryMyUI) allows you to run remote usability tests and gain user insights to inform your product, marketing, e-commerce, startup, or agency strategy—and build products your users will enjoy. It lets you run live product analytics to test your customer’s journey, conduct unmoderated tests, and watch the recording to identify user frustrations.

Key Features:

• Test prototypes, live websites, or mobile apps: Conduct usability testing at any stage or device and improve your SUS
• Recruit from its panel: Access Trymata’s pre-screened participants’ panel
• Create and upload custom NDAs to protect your brand: Avoid information leaks by writing personalized NDAs for participants to sign before testing
• Collaboration tools: Use highlight reels, invite multiple researchers to work on projects, and leave video annotations to simplify remote team collaboration.

Pricing:

• Trymata’s usability testing plans start at $333/month. It accommodates two seats and includes 120 yearly panel credits.

Hotjar

Best for website user behavior analytics.

Hotjar helps measure website usability by recording real user behavior through clicks and mouse tracking—and is well known for its live heatmap recording. Additional features include session recordings, conversion funnel analysis, and user feedback collection via forms and surveys.

Test Automation Tool

Key Features:

• Heatmaps: See the hot spots where users are spending the most time on your site and the colder areas that aren’t getting much love
• Screen and clicks recording: The spot where your visitors click and what catches their eye
• Capture feedback from real users: Use Hotjar’s in-app pop-ups to ask real visitors for feedback and update your design and UX.
• Host moderated user testing interviews: Pay for Hotjar to engage in connecting with users face-to-face and humanizing your quantitative data.

Pricing:

• Hotjar offers four packages, ranging from $32/month to $9448/month, depending on your chosen features.

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FAQs:

How do you test usability?

You can test usability in moderated or unmoderated sessions, remotely or in person, by following these steps:

• Define your test goals.
• Outline the logistics, i.e., when it happens, who’s your audience, and where it will occur.
• Choose the testing tool.
• Determine the format, i.e., moderated or unmoderated, in-person or remote, quantitative or qualitative.
• Limit the audience size
• Write test tasks
• Decide evaluation metrics
• Run the usability test
• Create a usability report with results
• Determine action steps

What is a usability testing tool?

A usability testing tool is a software solution that provides features to check if your design is usable and intuitive enough for users to accomplish their goals. A wireframe and usability testing tool allows you to see how people can complete a task on your prototype, website, or application. These tools share areas of improvement and flag potential usability problems based on user feedback.

What are the three types of usability tests?

The three types of usability tests are:

• Quantitative vs. Qualitative
• Moderated vs. Unmoderated
• Remote vs. In-person

What tools do you use to do manual usability testing?

To do manual usability testing, you’ll need these tools:

• A note-taking app (or a pen and paper)
• Video conferencing software (or a video camera and audio recorder to record the session)
• Your app or website

What are user experience (UX) testing tools?

User experience testing tools are software or platforms that help businesses evaluate and analyze the usability and overall user experience of their digital products or websites. These tools offer various methods for collecting user feedback, conducting usability tests, and measuring user satisfaction to improve the design and functionality of digital experiences.

Why are user experience testing tools important?

User experience testing tools are important because they provide valuable insights into how users interact with digital products or websites. By identifying usability issues, pain points, and areas of improvement, businesses can enhance the user experience, increase customer satisfaction, and drive better engagement and conversions.

What types of user experience testing tools are available?

Several user experience testing tools are available, including remote usability testing tools, heat mapping tools, session recording tools, A/B testing tools, and survey tools. Each type offers unique features and methodologies for collecting data and analyzing user behavior to gain actionable insights.

How can user experience testing tools benefit businesses?

User experience testing tools offer numerous benefits to businesses. They help identify usability problems early, allowing quick improvements and cost-effective design iterations. They also provide objective data-driven insights, enabling businesses to make informed decisions based on user behavior. Optimizing the user experience can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty and achieve better business outcomes.

Can user experience testing tools be used for both websites and mobile apps?

Yes, user experience testing tools for websites and mobile apps can be used. The principles of usability and user experience apply to both platforms, and many testing tools offer specific features and capabilities for testing and analyzing user experiences on websites and mobile applications.