We’ve taken on feedback from customers to make the experience with Figma files for prototype tests faster, smoother, and more reliable. Check out the latest upgrades:

Up to 50% faster Figma image uploads

We’ve optimized our import engine to speed up Figma uploads. We’ve seen upload times improve by 50%. For example, a large prototype with 80 frames and interactions used to take 70 seconds is now done in under 30 seconds.

Increased reliability for Figma imports

All frames from a Figma page are now imported by default. There’s no longer a requirement to manually select a starting node. This reduces setup errors and ensures every frame gets uploaded, making imports smoother and more dependable.

We’ve expanded our prototype testing capabilities–now you can track user interactions with Figma overlays!

💻 What’s a Figma overlay?
Overlays in Figma are frames that pop up on top of other content on a page. They are commonly used for modals, dropdowns, tooltips, and more. They simulate layered UI without navigating away from the main frame, making them ideal for realistic prototype flows.

⭐ Why it matters
Until now, overlays were not trackable for Optimal prototype tests. With this release, Optimal now captures overlay activity just like any other page.

✅ What you can do

Track overlay interactions: See when participants open or close overlays, what paths they take, and where they get stuck.

Set overlays as task answers: Mark an overlay as a correct destination or path in your tasks to better test intent and usability.

Capture the full user journey: Understand user flows with greater accuracy, especially for experiences built with overlays.

This means smarter insights, fewer blind spots, and a more complete view of your users’ behavior.

At Optimal, we're all about cutting the busywork so you can spend more time on meaningful insights and action. That’s why we’ve built automated Insights, powered by AI, to instantly surface key themes from your survey responses, as well as your pre- and post-study and post-task questions.

No extra tools. No manual review. Just faster insights to help you make quicker, data-backed decisions.

What You’ll Get with Automated Insights

• Instant insight discovery
  ​Spot patterns instantly across hundreds of responses without reading every single one. Get insights served up with zero manual digging or theme-hunting.

• Insights grounded in real participant responses
  ​We show the numbers behind every key takeaway, including percentage and participant count, so you know exactly what’s driving each insight. And when participants say it best, we pull out their quotes to bring the insights to life.

• Zoom in for full context
  ​Want to know more? Easily drill down to the exact participants behind each insight for open text responses, so you can verify, understand nuances, and make informed decisions with confidence.

• Segment-specific insights
  ​Apply any segment to your data and instantly uncover what matters most to that group. Whether you’re exploring by persona, demographic, or behavior, the themes adapt accordingly.

• Available across the board
  From survey questions to pre- to post-study, and post-task questions, you’ll automatically get Insights across all question types, including open text questions, matrix, ranking, and more.

Big news! One of our most requested survey features is now live — Display Logic! 🎉

Now you can create dynamic, personalized surveys that show each participant only the questions and answers that are relevant to them.

• Show or hide questions or answers based on earlier responses from radio, Likert, and dropdown questions
• Set multiple logic conditions for one question
• Apply logic across screeners, pre- and post-study questions, and survey questions

That means:

✔️ Higher-quality data

✔️ Fewer drop-offs

✔️ More targeted insights

You’ll now see AI Insights in your Questionnaire and Task Results tabs—instantly surfacing key themes from participant text responses (single- and multi-line). You can also apply a segment to dig deeper and uncover more targeted insights.

Here's what's included:

• Instant insights, right in the study results. No extra tools or workflows needed.
• Grounded in real responses. Each insight features participant quotes and highlights the number of responses relating to the theme, giving you trustworthy evidence.
• Get the full context. Easily drill down to the exact participants behind each insight, so you can verify, understand nuances, and make informed decisions with confidence.
• Segment-specific insights in seconds. Filter by any segment to instantly uncover themes relevant to your target segments.
• Works everywhere. Available for past and current studies, surveys, pre/post-study questions, and post-task questions. If it’s an open text question, it’s covered.

Coming soon! Insights for additional question types

One of your highly requested features is here! Participants can now collapse, expand, and move tasks while completing a prototype test—making it easier to see and interact with more of the prototype design. This is especially useful for showing mobile prototype tests.

We’re excited to launch our video recording functionality for prototype testing, enabling you to dive deeper into the “why” behind user actions and empowering you to make data-informed decisions faster and with greater confidence.

This feature is available for Enterprise, Teams, and Individual+ plans. To get started, go to a Prototype test > Setup > Settings to set your preferences for audio, video, and screen recording.

We’re grateful to our early adopters and beta testers for shaping the future of video recording and prototype testing. Based on your valuable feedback, we’ve made the following updates:

Video recording updates

• Additional recording controls: You can now control whether to reject participants or forward a participant to a non-recording study link if they do not meet your recording criteria.
• Translations: Set your study language and translate the recording instructions into 180+ languages.
• No video expirations: We’ve removed video expirations, ensuring your recordings remain accessible as long as you have an active Optimal subscription.
• Improved participant experience: We’ve improved the technology to reduce technical errors, creating a more reliable and user-friendly experience.

One of your highly requested features is here!

When enabled, tasks will automatically end 0.5 seconds after a participant reaches a correct destination, removing the need for participants to manually confirm that they've completed the task.

This can help improve the overall participant experience, removing extra steps and making tests faster to complete.

To enable this setting, go to a Prototype Test > Setup > Task > Task options > Task end automatically.

Ambiguous or overly complex wording can confuse respondents, making it harder to get reliable, accurate responses. Plus, refining survey and question language is manual and can be a time-consuming process with little guidance.

To solve this, we built an AI-powered tool to help study creators craft questions that resonate with participants and speed up the process of designing studies.

Our new AI Simplify feature helps with:

• Instant Suggestions: Simplify complex question wording and improve clarity to make your questions easier to understand.
• Seamless Editing: Accept, reject, or regenerate suggestions with just a click, giving you complete control.
• Better Insights: By refining your questions, you’ll gather more accurate responses, leading to higher-quality data that drives better decisions.

We’re excited to share that Optimal has now been added to the User Interviews integration marketplace! 🤝

If you’re using User Interviews to recruit for your Optimal studies, you can now easily track participant progress in User Interviews as participants start and finish their studies. Learn how to set up.

Prefer to have Optimal handle your recruitment? We’ve got you covered—from feasibility to reminders and personalized study checks. We work with top panels like User Interviews to ensure faster, seamless completions and meaningful insights for your product development and designs. Learn more.