The 13 best UX research tools to unlock data-driven insights in 2024

Not all user experience (UX) research tools are made equal. Are you using the best resources to maximize your research results?

UX research has become a staple practice for high-performing brands across all industries worldwide. The top user research strategies continue to adapt and change based on the latest and greatest technology and innovation. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that plenty of high-quality UX research tools are available to help your team take their current practices to the next level.

In 2023, it’s time to stop wasting resources on UX software that doesn’t best serve your company or your goals. This article will help you sort through the weeds and find the tried and true gems to help your business succeed and grow.

UX research explores the needs, wants, and preferences of a product or service’s users. By asking questions and collecting direct customer feedback, UX research aims to gain valuable insights to improve your company’s current offerings, cut back on costs, and become leaders in your chosen niche.

As an area of business practice that is gaining momentum and popularity in recent years, the world’s best-loved companies use UX research to curate a personalized, ideal experience for their top users and target audience.

UX researchers (AKA the experts in customer insights) use research techniques to collect a wealth of data about their target audience. These techniques include:

• Customer surveys

• A/B testing

• User interviews

When paired with easy-to-use, efficient UX research tools, the quality (and number) of insights increases—a situation that not only helps to guide future improvements but also reduces wasted resources and improves your bottom line.

As more workflows become optimized and digitized, the number of UX research tools on the market has continued to grow and expand.

To get the most out of your efforts, choosing the right UX tools is essential for the best results. When you find UX tools that integrate seamlessly into your existing workflow, your team will notice a variety of benefits. Let’s take a look at the key ones.

You will compile and process data faster

No matter what type of UX research you are conducting, data collection and organization are often a pain point for many companies. 

To get the best insights into your customer’s needs, you first need to collect and process their data—and for companies with large user bases, this can seem like a genuine nightmare to tackle.

By using UX tools, not only can your team set up clearly defined categories for the data you collect, but you can use machine learning and AI to enhance data filtering, processing, and even analysis. As a result, these tools often save your team valuable time and resources while providing high-quality insights into your customers’ preferences and needs.

You will collect unique data points

Looking to hyper-focus your research into a unique area of customer experience? Using the right UX research tools, you will not only explore more niche areas of your industry and audience but also find ways to integrate these findings into your existing product development strategy.

Whether you want to learn more about a specific subsection of your target audience or analyze an emerging trend with your recent sales, UX tools can help make your data more accessible.

You can automate your system for better results

A big part of successful UX research is executing your existing strategy. No matter how great your team’s plan is, if outreach and data collection is not automated, there is a good chance it will get forgotten or pushed aside.

To combat this, many businesses opt to use UX research tools that allow automated systems to be put in place. This way, customer surveys and invites for user interviews are automatically sent out as a customer progresses along the user journey, allowing for a constant influx of data for your team to analyze and use.

No matter the size of your company or team, UX research tools can help you collect better data and gain a more in-depth understanding of your target audience.

Here is our list of must-try UX research tools, broken down into categories to make it easier for you to find the tool you need.

Best UX research tools for user testing

These UX tools help you trial and test different types of content and flows to determine which option has the greatest impact. These tools (in no particular order) are a must for marketers and product developers looking to test digital assets.

Userlytics

Userlytics is a UX research platform designed to help companies test different areas of their digital footprint—from web copy to app feature prototypes.

Inviting its users to leverage its state-of-the-art user experience platform, Userlytics receives qualitative and quantitative data from your UX research outreach tools to create helpful insights for your business.

We recommend this tool for: Teams that need to stay lean across multiple projects and platforms.

Pricing: Userlytics offers payment plans starting at $49 per month.

Loop11

As a tool created to “put you in your customer’s shoes,” Loop11 is a UX usability tool capable of conducting effective A/B testing, benchmarking, information architecture (IA) testing, and more.

Using a platform powered by GPT-4, Loop11 helps companies discover valuable user insights that help to positively transform their future designs and product features. Their testing features are compatible with desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

We recommend this tool for: Enterprise-level brands looking for a comprehensive user testing platform. This is a great choice for experienced UX teams looking for a powerful, effective tool when testing features or marketing materials.

Pricing: After a free 14-day trial, Loop11 offers plans starting at $199 per month.

Best UX research tools for customer interviews

Conducting virtual customer interviews has become the new norm. Use these top-performing UX research tools to facilitate and record your next user interview with ease.

Zoom

As a communication platform that exploded in popularity at the start of 2020, Zoom is an AI-powered platform that makes remote virtual communication more efficient and accessible.

Great for use in internal meetings or for hosting customer interviews or focus groups, Zoom offers a wide variety of communication improvement tools, including group chatting, meeting whiteboards, and video recording options.

We recommend this tool for: Pretty much everyone! As more meetings and interviews migrate to digital platforms, Zoom can be used by companies of any size or in any niche.

Pricing: Zoom offers a free basic plan and other (more comprehensive) paid plans starting at $14.99 per user per month.

Notta

Notta is an AI solution created to help UX researchers transcribe audio clips into usable, clearly written transcripts.

Designed to help interviewers stay plugged into the moment, Notta creates and organizes transcripts of your virtual calls for your team to reference later. This tool can create transcripts in a wide variety of formats, including PDF, DOCX, and TXT.

We recommend this tool for: Small teams that could use the support or anyone who regularly interviews customers or people of interest looking to collect exact quotes for use in content or research.

Pricing: Notta offers a free basic account and paid subscription plans starting at $13.99 per month for individuals and $59 per month for teams.

Loom

Are you looking to record customer interviews but can’t find a time that works for a live session? If so, Loom is a great option for you.

As a video recording platform that allows users to film and send video instructions to their peers or customers, Loom can be used to collect user experiences at times that work best for their schedule.

This tool is a must-try for internal and external company communication and is great for enhancing the customer’s experience when answering interview questions without a live interviewer.

We recommend this tool for: Teams who regularly communicate with customers in different time zones. Loom is a great tool for async communication!

Pricing: Loom offers a free basic subscription and paid plans starting at $12.50 per user per month.

Best UX research tools for survey deployment

Want to send out engaging, branded surveys that get responses? Try these survey UX research tools to get the best results.

Google Forms

Google Forms is software that comes as part of Google Workspace. Using this tool, teams of any size can quickly build and send surveys to their customers to collect essential information almost immediately.

We recommend this tool for: Teams or individuals who are new to UX research and want to dip their toes into user-friendly survey creation with little to no learning curve.

Pricing: Free as part of Google Workspace

Typeform

Typeform is a refreshingly different UX survey platform that helps companies build beautiful, brand-specific surveys for their target audience.

With customer experience at the forefront of their mission, Typeform uses smart survey design to entice and compel your customers to share their feedback about your products and services. Easily embedded into company emails or web pages, this is a great tool for design-focused brands looking to collect user insights.

We recommend this tool for: Trendy, digital marketing creators or brands looking to make their survey stand out from the crowd with brand-specific UX surveys.

Pricing: Typeform offers different subscription packages, starting at $25 per month for their basic paid option.

SurveyMonkey

As one of the most well-known survey tools on the market, SurveyMonkey is a global leader in survey technology.

Now with AI-powered survey templates and question prompts, SurveyMonkey will help your team collect the information you actually need. Capable of being automated for maximum outreach, this tool also offers built-in insight reports and advanced analytics dashboards depending on the level of specificity you desire with your research.

We recommend this tool for: Companies of any size looking to use pre-built templates to create compelling, easy-to-use surveys for customer research.

Pricing: SurveyMonkey has a free basic tier and additional paid subscription tiers starting at $25 per month.

Best UX research tools for analytics and session tracking

Track and assess the activities of your customers to better understand their behavior and preferences using these must-try UX research tools.

Hotjar

Ever wanted to know why (or how) your web pages are used by your customers? Using Hotjar, this information not only becomes accessible but it allows your data to be used to improve user experience and sales.

Using heatmaps, Hotjar gives your team real-time data about how your customers interact with any of your digital platforms. If your company is considering a design refresh, Hotjar is a must—it can shine a light on areas of your current layout that can be improved and optimized for better results and clarity.

We recommend this tool for: Brands with a strong online presence and multi-page website looking to learn more about the behavior of their customers.

Pricing: HotJar offers a free basic subscription plan and more advanced paid options starting at $32 per month.

Mouseflow

Mouseflow is a powerful UX research tool that focuses on everything from session replays and in-app feedback tools to allowing integrations like user behavior analytics from external tools.

As a resource made to provide insights across the entire duration of the customer journey, Mouseflow also offers insights into your users’ behavior through a unique tool they call a friction score. This score can be used to filter the data by user sentiment (good or bad) to understand everything better, from your conversion funnel drop-offs, potential pain points, and sources of friction in your current web design.

We recommend this tool for: Large product-led SaaS companies with existing tools they want to integrate into their product. They also offer partnerships with independent firms or individuals to offer their services alongside them.

Pricing: Mouseflow offers a free basic tier in addition to paid options starting at $31 per month.

Best UX research tools for documenting and sharing data

Share insights internally and facilitate your next brainstorming session with these easy-to-use tools designed to take your UX strategy to the next level.

Notion

Notion is a multi-faceted platform that helps to create a functioning workflow in one place.

With a near cult-like following, Notion is well-loved by many start-ups and businesses who want a connected platform for communication, documentation, and brainstorming. From research collection and analysis to product development and tracking, Notion is a great resource for anyone who loves organization.

We recommend this tool for: Startups and small businesses that primarily operate from home.

Pricing: Notion offers a free individual plan, and additional paid team plans starting at $8 per month.

Slab

Focused on shared learning and knowledge, Slab is a platform designed to simplify and organize your workflow.

Marketed for use within specific company teams (like engineering, sales, and operations), Slab allows teams to create Slab topic boards to collect and analyze specific project data.

Capable of integration with other popular resources like Google Drive and Slack, Slab is a great resource for remote teams looking to stay on track with upcoming product launches or projects.

We recommend this tool for: Brands looking to optimize and organize their workflow into one central hub.

Pricing: Slab offers a free tier for 10 users or fewer and paid options starting at $6.67 per user per month for large teams.

Best UX research repository tool

UX research experts understand the importance of data organization.

Dovetail

We can’t compile a list of great UX research tools without mentioning Dovetail.

Successful UX research understands the importance of quality customer insights. As a platform created to help your company bring your customers into every decision, Dovetail allows your team to make more informed product decisions and build features your customers will love.

Your go-to place for storing and analyzing customer research, Dovetail makes it possible to surface better, more actionable customer insights from all forms of feedback.

We recommend this tool for: Businesses and internal UX teams focused on a customer-first approach for long-term growth and success.

Pricing: Dovetail offers multiple pricing plans based on company needs, starting at $30 per month.

The future is here, and the results are in: continual UX research is a requirement for any business looking to grow and flourish.

No matter the size of your team, integrating simple yet effective UX research strategies into your company’s day-to-day practices is the best way to improve your products, better serve your customer base, and become a leader in your chosen niche.