A reliable and functionally efficient user research tech stack can help you save time, effort, and costs when it comes to gathering, disseminating, and using information. Now, a quick search will bring up at least 50 free to use research tools but what you need is a comprehensive tool-set that allows you to manage every stage of user research.
Let’s break it down.
Recruit, Schedule, & Incentivize
- Dscout - Conduct flexible, remote, and unmoderated user research, recruit participants, and avail of their other services like auto-transcription. Shopify leveraged Dscout to personalize and ultimately improve their checkout experience by conducting studies about their users’ current experiences and what changes they’d like to see.
- Ethnio - Select users from a centralized database to conduct user interviews with a streamlined management platform. Asana, SkillShare, and other organizations have tapped into Ethnio’s offerings for quantitative and qualitative research that they’re able to organize and schedule effortlessly.
- UserStudy - When it comes to conducting full-scale moderated and unmoderated research from interviews to product testing and global invoicing, UserStudy offers it all. They offer quick turnarounds so that you can focus on the most important areas of research and make informed decisions. LeapScholar and OYO are among some of their clients who swear by the benefits of UserStudy.
- Tango Card - With Tango Card you can incentivize your research participants, group studies, and more to ensure you get accurate and true results every time. You can choose from over 350 gift options that are instantly delivered and redeemable.
Conducting & Recording
- Zoom / Google Meet - These apps have both free and paid versions that allow you to conduct audio and video meetings effortlessly. The free versions of both apps have certain restrictions like the inability to record meetings or schedule calls for longer than 45mins or 1hr.
- tl/dv for Google Meet - This free to use Chrome extension allows you to record and transcribe the recordings into 20+ languages.
Transcribing
- Otter.ai - Tools like zoom often have transcription services in-built but they may not always be as powerful. If you’re looking for a comprehensive automated tool, otter.ai is the one. It offers real-time transcription, file sharing and collaboration, file importation, and more.
Synthesize
- Dovetail - This tool helps you get the most out if you research by helping you consolidate research, identify key themes, use tags and boards, store, and collaborate with your team.
- Google Sheets - Simple, easy to navigate, and accessible to all without restraints, Google Sheets is the quickest and easiest way to capture all your research and organize it at your convenience.
Present & Collaborate
- Notion - User research can be wide and varied and Notion allows you to properly store and manage your documentation across research and teams with extremely flexible databases and search options.
- Invision - Apart from all the previous tools, Invision is a standalone app that offers real-time collaboration where users can leave comments, add information, storyboard, brainstorm, and get creative.
These tools can help you kickstart your user research journey or enhance your team's processes and journey. If you’re looking for more tools for collaboration, check out Evolt for collaboration, Twist for async team communications, and Doodle to schedule meetings. Most of these applications are easily integrated with frequently used calendars and design tools as well.
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