2025 is shaping up to be an incredible year for UX research—and we’re just getting started!

From richer insights with Video Recording for Prototype Testing to faster study creation with our new Study Flow, Optimal is empowering research, product, and design teams to make confident decisions in days, not weeks.

✨ Ready to see what’s here and what’s coming next? Check out the latest product update.

Inspired by insights from Optimal users, we’ve reimagined study creation to bring you a beautifully streamlined experience with the new Study Flow tab.

With the new Study Flow, you’ll:

⚡ Enjoy faster study set up: Messages & instructions and Questionnaire tabs are combined in a single tab - called Study Flow - for faster editing and settings customization.

✨ See it all at a glance: Easily visualize and understand the participant experience—from the welcome message to the final thank-you screen—every step of the way.

🎯 Duplicate questions: Save time and quickly replicate questions for surveys, screening questions, and pre- and post-study questions.

⭐ Experience enhanced UI: Enjoy a modern, clean design with intuitive updates that minimize scrolling and reduce mental load.

🗂️ Collapse and expand sections: Easily navigate studies by collapsing and expanding sections, making it easier to build out specific parts of your study.

This Study Flow tab is available across all Optimal tools, except for Qualitative Insights.

After months of collaboration with our incredible community, we're thrilled to announce that Prototype Testing has officially graduated from beta and is now available to everyone on the Individual+, Team, and Enterprise plans!

Over the past few months, we've worked alongside a diverse group of customers and UX leaders— who provided invaluable feedback, completed many Usability Tests, and helped us refine this new tool.

Together, we’ve tackled challenges, explored creative solutions, and built something that truly aligns with user needs.

Here’s a look at what we delivered

• Figma OAuth Integration
• Improved security with password management‍
• Improvements to usability
• Results sharing
• Improvement to the workflows of the participant data view
• Ability to take notes in the analysis sections Task Results, Click Maps, Paths, and Questionnaires.
• And of course, we fixed a few 🐛 along the way

Learn more about what's next with Prototype Testing

Recruiting high quality participants can be a hassle and time-consuming. That’s why we’ve relaunched Optimal Recruitment with expanded profiling capabilities, enhanced quality controls, and full-service support—to let you focus on what matters most: powerful insights to drive better decisions.

Let us handle recruitment from start to finish - from feasibility, study reminders, confirmations, and incentive management - so that you can focus on analyzing and gaining insights.

You can access our services anytime via the Recruit tab of your studies. Available now for Card Sorting, Tree Testing, First-Click Testing, Prototype Testing, and Surveys.

We're thrilled to announce the re-launch of our Qualitative Insights tool, formerly known as Reframer, featuring two new powerful upgrades:

• New Insights tab: A dedicated space to capture, organize, and communicate your key takeaways
• AI capabilities: Optional AI-powered assistance to speed up insight discovery and reveal hidden patterns in your data

And don’t forget—you can now import and tag transcripts for even quicker analysis!

From usability studies to customer success and employee experience and beyond, the Qualitative Insights tool is designed to capture notes and observations from any interview, focus group, or discussion. When paired with other Optimal tools, you can uncover even deeper insights. The possibilities are endless-and now's the perfect time to dive in!

Since launching the Beta, we've been collaborating closely with hundreds of customers to gather feedback and run usability testing.

Here’s what’s new:

Improved security with password management: A new "Password settings" button allows users to manage stored passwords, which participants receive before starting their Prototype Study. Additionally, users are prompted for a password when importing protected prototypes.

Results sharing: You can now easily share specific sections (e.g., analysis, tasks, clickmaps) via a URL with your stakeholders in just a few clicks. With the added protection of a password for secure access.

Participant data view: To speed up your data analysis and improve your workflows we’ve added task metrics in the "Results > Participants" table, showing tasks completed, skipped, and success percentage.

Notes Tab in Analysis: Users can now take notes directly in the Analysis section for Task Results, Click Maps, Paths, and Questionnaires.

This update lets users analyze data more quickly with flexible export options and an improved format for questionnaire and survey downloads. Find out more about the updates below.

• Additional download export options: Access new download questionnaire data options. Choose to download questionnaire data by pre-study, post-study, and screening questions.

• Organized question tabs: Navigate your data more easily with each question exported to its own tab in the download spreadsheet. Each question tab will mirror the question and answer format/structure found under the Questionnaire section.

• Dedicated screening question tab: Review screener questions - now separated in a dedicated tab - with the added option to exclude them from your export.

• Added index numbers for Surveys analysis: An index number column (e.g. 1, 2, 3) has been added next to the labels for radio, Likert, and checkbox question types in the "Participant data" download for easier analysis. A new tab has been added to display answer indices for fixed set questions (e.g., radio, checkbox, multi-select), while matrix questions will still export with their values.

To get started, navigate to the Downloads tab under Results. Results Downloads are available for all tools except for Qualitative Insights.

We are a month or so into the Prototype Testing Beta and have received some great feedback from customers about password-protected Figma files. We are delighted to share that this week we have released an update to Prototype Testing to securely streamline your importing from Figma. You can now authorize Optimal to access your Figma account using Figmas oAuth.
With this latest release, you can keep your Figma file private while setting up your study ensuring your designs are always protected. Optimal will only retrieve data about the specific file you are importing; we won’t retrieve data about your team, other projects, users, etc. The endpoints that Optimal will request from Figmas REST API during import are GET file and GET image.

Hi there,
​
Exciting news! We've expanded our UX platform with the addition of our new Prototype Testing tool. ​ This tool lets you validate designs, gather quick insights, and make confident decisions to create more intuitive digital experiences. Whether building from scratch or importing from Figma, our prototype tool has you covered. The first iteration of prototype testing is an open beta, and we’re working closely with our customers to gather feedback for further improvements. Find out more about our new tool, and what’s coming next at Optimal.

August 6, 2024

We're thrilled to announce a major transformation of Optimal Workshop. We're expanding beyond UX research tools to become a best in class user research and insights platform. This refresh brings:

• Expanded focus to serve all digital experience professionals
• More accessible tools without compromising depth
• Emphasis on best practices and community building
• New outcome-focused tool names
• Enhanced resources and educational offerings

Whether you're a long-time user or new to digital experience optimization, this evolution is designed to empower you in creating exceptional digital products. Discover how our changes benefit you and join us in shaping the future of digital experiences