UserZoom review

UserZoom is an online user experience (UX) research platform aimed at providing valuable insights for people who design and build digital products to ensure they deliver the best experiences for their users.

According to a Total Economic Impact (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Research to determine the potential return on investment (ROI) of deploying UserZoom, organizations can expect 537% ROI, $2.3m in total benefits over three years, and a payback period of fewer than six months.

Plans and pricing

Like many UX platforms, UserZoom doesn’t display pricing information on its website. Instead, you have to contact the sales team to find the right package to suit your needs.

However, I did come across other websites that mentioned UserZoom pricing, but they varied quite a lot, with one saying it costs $9000/year, another $25,000/year, and a third $50–100,000/year.

Each annual subscription includes unlimited seats, i.e. users, data collection, studies, and participant responses. You can also choose multiple research methods and test any device at any stage.

 After registering for a subscription, you can customize it by choosing additional optional modules like advanced participant sourcing options and platform capabilities, global testing, and additional live studies, professional services, technical support, and integrations. 

Features

UserZoom’s biggest selling point is being able to give your organization the full picture when it comes to the user experience of the products you’re testing by giving you access to all of your resulting insights in one place. 

The UserZoom process starts with the creation of the desired studies. Next the data is gathered, with  multiple participant sourcing options available. Finally, the data is analyzed and displayed through automated dashboards and reports. Data can be gathered in a number of different ways. 

Think-out-loud usability testing records audio feedback from test participants as they use a product and make comments on it. Meanwhile, online surveys collect data about the net promoter score (NPS) – used in assessing customer loyalty – ease of use, and brand perception.

Card sorting tests how people make sense of your product’s menus and taxonomy, while tree testing deals with the structure of menus to detect navigational issues.

Finally, click and timeout testing evaluates first impressions and measures the time taken to complete certain tasks, and true intent testing intercepts visitors to websites or apps to ask them why they’re visiting.

UserZoom takes security very seriously, promising enterprise-grade levels of security and reliability. Accordingly, the company employs a dedicated security team tasked with carrying out regular vulnerability assessments, source code reviews, and internal risk assessments. UserZoom also uses a reputable third-party provider to perform annual penetration testing.

To help you get the best out of the service, UserZoom offers professional services for user onboarding and training, strategy, and research. The professional services team becomes almost like an extension of your own internal UX team.

UserZoom’s team includes PhD-level researchers from around the world with diverse backgrounds who have published books and peer-reviewed articles. They can handle every aspect of your studies, with their services tailored to fit the specific needs of each individual client.

Interface and in use

The challenge software makers face when they provide a product packed with a lot of features is how to present that functionality in a way that is usable without being overwhelming. It’s a fine line to tread, and not one that all software gets right. 

Some sections and pages of the UserZoom dashboard are well designed, like the Project Dashboard below, which is clean and uncluttered.

Other sections are more difficult to use, with many users reporting that UserZoom has a steep learning curve.

But it seems that improving the interface of UserZoom is a continual process, and there is an article in the Using UserZoom section describing how the company is using its own tool to help improve the UX of the product. 

Support

UserZoom offers 24/7 support from a multilingual team. You can submit a support ticket, chat online, fill out a form to send a message, or call them at one of their offices in San Jose, Denver or New York in the US, London or Manchester in the UK, and Barcelona or Madrid in Spain.

There is also an extensive Resources section which contains blogs, case studies, webinars, ebooks, and how-to videos and articles.

The Competition

The user experience research space is a very crowded one, with UserZoom being up against services like UserTesting, Hotjar, Smartlook, Dynatrace, Instapage, and CrazyEgg. 

The main difference between UserZoom and the rest is in the cost. UserTesting, for example, costs $50 per participant, whereas UserZoom costs several thousand dollars. However, that extra expense gets you a much more flexible testing platform, with more question types and styles, randomization, and segment-based surveying.

Final Verdict

UserZoom is a flexible user experience research platform with an extensive array of advanced user testing and research features and functionality.

These advanced tools and features will appeal to experienced UX professionals, but those with less experience may find it difficult to get to grips with, and some may be put off by the steep learning curve.

But for those that do have trouble getting the best out of UserZoom, the professional services team offers top-notch support.