Custom Network

Custom Network in UX Research

Effective UX research needs insights from the right participants. Broad Contributor Networks from user testing platforms give access to diverse user groups. However, many research questions need feedback from a specific group: your existing customers, beta users, employees, or users with unique traits not found in a general pool. This is where the Custom Network feature is valuable. It lets organizations skip the general panel and conduct user tests with their own recruited participants. This ensures feedback comes from the most relevant audience for their product or feature. This article will explain what a Custom Network is in user testing. It will cover its key aspects and common uses. You’ll learn why it’s important for targeted research and the benefits and considerations of using it.

What is a Custom Network?

In user testing and UX research platforms like Userlytics, the term Custom Network, also known as “Bring Your Own Users” (BYOU) or “Client-Supplied Participants,” refers to a feature. This feature lets clients invite and run studies with a specific group of participants they recruit. This means clients can use their own participants instead of just the platform’s Contributor Network.

The client organization handles sourcing and contacting potential participants. After finding individuals who agree to participate, they can upload a list of these contacts, usually email addresses, into the user testing platform. The platform then uses this list to support the research process.

The platform’s role when using a Custom Network includes:

• Sending Invitations: Distributing study invitations or unique study links to the provided list of participants.
• Managing Participation: Tracking who has viewed the invitation, started the study, and completed it.
• Conducting the Study: Delivering the test scenarios, tasks, and questions to the participants.
• Data Capture: Recording screens, audio, video (if applicable), clicks, task times, and collecting responses to questions – just as with participants from the general panel.
• Data Presentation: Organizing and presenting the collected data and insights within the platform’s dashboard.

The key difference from using the platform’s general Contributor Network is that the source of the participants is entirely controlled by the client. This capability is essential when the target audience is highly specific, already engaged with the company, or internal.

Leveraging Your Own Pool: Key Aspects and Use Cases

Using a Custom Network feature is important for testing with participant groups that are hard to reach or identify through regular research panels. Key aspects and common use cases include:

1. Targeting Specific User Segments: Companies can test with narrow or niche user groups defined by criteria specific to their business or industry that might not be covered in standard panel profiling (e.g., users of a specific niche software tool, customers in a particular industry role, users who have completed a specific action on the site).
2. Testing with Existing Customers: Gaining feedback from current users who are familiar with the product provides insights into their actual usage patterns, pain points, and satisfaction levels. This is invaluable for iteration and understanding retention.
3. Testing Internal Tools or Processes: Conducting usability tests or gathering feedback on internal software, workflows, or prototypes with employees or specific internal teams.
4. Beta Testing New Features: Running studies with a select group of beta testers who have early access to new features or products, gathering feedback before a wider release.
5. Testing Sensitive or Confidential Material: For products or concepts that are highly confidential or not yet publicly announced, using a trusted group from an internal list or a specific opt-in group ensures privacy.
6. Gathering Feedback from Specific Stakeholders: Testing with partners, power users, enterprise clients, or other key stakeholder groups whose feedback is critical.
7. Validating Concepts with a Known Audience: Testing new concepts or value propositions specifically with an audience segment known to fit the target profile or be potentially interested.
8. Recruiting Via Client’s Channels: The client might recruit participants through their own marketing lists, social media channels, in-app prompts, or customer outreach, then direct these participants to the testing platform via the Custom Network feature.

The platform provides the testing infrastructure, but the success of recruitment relies on the client’s ability to identify, reach, and motivate their specific desired participants. This flexibility allows for highly tailored research studies.

Why the Custom Network Option is Important

Testing with a Custom Network is crucial for many organisations doing UX research. Its value comes from:

1. Access to Highly Relevant Participants: Provides the ability to conduct research with individuals whose feedback is directly applicable to specific user segments, existing customer bases, or internal users that cannot be adequately represented by a general panel.
2. Insights from Actual Users: Testing with people who have real-world experience using the product (or a similar one) provides deeper, more contextualized, and often more actionable insights than testing with individuals who only fit a demographic profile.
3. Validation with Your Target Audience: Allows companies to validate design decisions, test hypotheses, and understand the needs of the exact user groups they are designing for, including niche or enterprise segments.
4. Enables Confidential Research: Provides a secure way to test sensitive or unreleased product features with a trusted, private group of participants.
5. Greater Control Over Recruitment: Gives organizations direct control over the source and characteristics of their research participants.
6. Supplements General Panel Data: Can be used to get broad initial feedback from a general panel, followed by validation and deeper insights from a custom network of actual or target users.
7. Potential Cost-Effectiveness: For organizations with well-managed lists of potential participants, leveraging a custom network can be more efficient and cost-effective than recruiting the same specific criteria through a general panel (if possible at all).

The Custom Network feature empowers companies to connect directly with the users who matter most for specific research questions, leading to more precise findings and better-informed design decisions tailored to their core audience.

Practicalities: Pros and Cons of Using a Custom Network

Leveraging a Custom Network for user testing offers significant benefits related to targeting but also shifts some recruitment responsibility onto the client.

Pros of Using a Custom Network:

• Precise Targeting: Access to highly specific, niche, or internal user groups not available in general panels.
• Relevant Insights: Feedback from actual users with real-world context and experience.
• Control Over Participants: Direct control over who is invited to participate.
• Confidentiality: Ideal for testing sensitive internal tools or unreleased features with trusted groups.
• Validation with Core Audience: Get feedback from your actual customers or defined user segments.
• Potential Cost/Time Savings: Can be faster/cheaper if you have a ready list of engaged users.
• Bypasses Panel Limitations: Overcomes challenges when the general panel cannot provide required participants.

Cons of Using a Custom Network:

• Client-Side Recruitment Effort: The client is responsible for identifying, contacting, and motivating their own participants to sign up.
• Managing Your Own List: Requires the client to maintain an updated list and potentially handle consent for research contact.
• Potential for Smaller Sample Sizes: Depends entirely on the client’s list size and response rate, which might be smaller than a large general panel.
• Lack of Platform Profiling: Bypasses the platform’s detailed participant profiling; targeting relies solely on the client’s knowledge of their list.
• Requires Internal Management: Needs internal processes for identifying and managing participants within the client organization.
• Obtaining Consent: The client must ensure they have appropriate consent from their list to contact them for research.

For companies with unique testing needs or their own user base, the feedback from a Custom Network is often more valuable than the effort to find participants.

Conclusion on Custom Networks

The Custom Network feature is crucial for user testing platforms. It lets organizations conduct research with specific user segments, current customers, employees, or other targeted groups.

The Custom Network option lets companies “bring their own participants.” This means they don’t have to rely only on a general contributor network. It helps them get feedback from people whose insights matter for specific research questions or product areas. This is crucial for testing niche features, internal tools, confidential prototypes, or validating concepts with real users.

The Custom Network lets clients handle participant sourcing. This gives control over who joins, ensuring feedback is from the most relevant audience. As a result, research findings are more precise, actionable, and impactful. This feature is essential for organizations wanting deep, targeted insights to support user-centered design and product success.