Streamline UX Research with Userlytics’ Unmoderated Testing

Unmoderated testing is a type of user testing where participants complete tasks on their own, without a moderator present. This allows for more natural interactions and quicker results. It’s particularly useful in remote usability testing, where participants can be located anywhere in the world, providing valuable insights into user experience (UX) without the need for scheduling or direct supervision.

Use moderated testing when you need in-depth insights and the ability to ask follow-up questions in real-time. Unmoderated testing, on the other hand, is ideal for large-scale studies where you want to gather feedback quickly and efficiently. It’s especially beneficial for website usability testing and when you need unbiased, real-world user interactions.

Running an unmoderated user test with Userlytics is simple. Start by designing your study using our intuitive builder. Next, recruit participants from our global panel. Once your study is live, participants can complete tasks at their convenience, and you can review detailed results, including video recordings, transcriptions, and quantitative metrics, all through our UX testing platform.

Unmoderated usability testing can be applied to various scenarios, such as testing website navigation, mobile app usability, and even e-commerce checkout processes. For example, you can use unmoderated user testing tools to observe how users interact with a new feature on your site or to compare the usability of different design prototypes.

While unmoderated testing offers many advantages, it may lack the depth of insights that moderated testing provides, especially in complex scenarios requiring immediate clarification. Additionally, since participants complete tasks independently, there is less control over the testing environment, which can sometimes result in incomplete data. However, these drawbacks can be mitigated by carefully designing your study and using advanced unmoderated testing platforms.

The primary difference lies in the presence of a moderator. In moderated usability testing, a facilitator guides the participant through tasks, often asking questions and probing for deeper insights. Unmoderated usability testing, on the other hand, allows participants to complete tasks independently, which can lead to more natural behavior and unbiased feedback. Both methods have their place in a comprehensive UX research strategy.

Absolutely. Unmoderated testing can complement other UX research methods, such as moderated sessions, surveys, and A/B testing. By combining different approaches, you can gain a more holistic understanding of user behavior and preferences, leading to better-informed design decisions.

"If you are using your own usability test participants, it depends on how quickly they respond to your invitation. Our platform processing time takes between 1 to 5 minutes, so you can receive results extremely quickly. When using the Userlytics Panel, with broad based demographics, after a thorough QA review of every user test video, results are available in as little as 24 hours, sometimes within hours. For narrowly based demographic targets, it depends on the filters and behavioural screener used to set up the project, and thus how narrowly defined the target Persona is."

"We can conduct user testing with the maximum session time set to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes or any maximum duration you choose. However, we recommend designing unmoderated usability test sessions for approximately 20 min session times, with the maximum session time set to 30 minutes to catch outliers. For moderated usability test sessions (“Live Conversations”) a default session time of 60 minutes is used."

There are a number of different ways you can leverage Userlytics for remote usability testing:

You can use your own participants, or have them provided by a 3rd party user experience respondent panel, or ask Userlytics to recruit and incentivize the participants, or leverage our over 2 million member proprietary panel. You can configure participant redirects to specific landing pages for completes, abandons, etc. Respondents download a small app that checks if they have the necessary equipment (e.g.: webcams, when applicable) and that takes them through the tasks and questions you have defined.

You can test a website, a wireframe, a set of static images, a video, a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation, or any other type of digital asset accessible from a computer, including desktop applications.

You can test a mobile App that is available on the App Store or Google Play, or an unreleased App using TestFlight or similar, on both smartphones and tablets. You can simultaneously view the screen interactions, listen to what the participant hears, and see the participants’ face and surroundings in a “Picture-in-Picture” (PiP) format video.

You can use our customizable templates for all types of use cases, work flows and scenarios for easy task and exit survey question formulation.

You can leverage skipping logic in the design of your unmoderated usability testing script, as well as in the design of a custom screener survey.

You can create an invitation link for participants that forces them to register their name and email, or one that incorporates a unique identifier in the link (e.g.: for use with 3rd party panel providers) which you can send or post anywhere.

You can use a customizable respondent feedback invitation widget that you can add on any website page.

You can access the full video and survey question results, share access to specific projects with clients and colleagues, and download videos, quantitative metrics and survey results for your own reporting format.

You can access a hyperlinked “Video Highlights” section with key comments and events linked to specific videos and timeline moments.
You can download specific video clips with or without captions of annotation titles.

You can automatically create “Highlight Reels” of clips from different participants and/or studies linked by a common theme through the use of tags.

You can request an AI generated audio transcript of the videos with time stamped text for easy searching of videos and links to specific timeline moments.

You can request an analysis and executive summary, crafted by one of our Professional UX Consultants, of results with detailed recommendations for each issue uncovered.

Capture of computer or mobile device screen interactions; Capture of participant audio commentary; Capture of participant and context; Integrated “Picture-in-Picture” (PiP) video of participant, verbal “think aloud” commentary, and screen device interactions; Skipping logic; Configurable testing methodology (webcam, screen, audio recording + metrics, or screen, audio recording + metrics or audio recording + metrics).

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) protection; User testing of production sites, mobile apps and desktop applications; UX testing of prototypes, wireframes, PNG sketches, unreleased mobile Apps; Usability testing of Android or iOS, free or paid, production or prototype mobile apps; In-linetime stamped hyperlinked annotations; Downloadable videos (MP4), as well as downloadable CSV files (time on task, success/failure rates, System Usability Scale, Net promoter Score, demographic specs and other quantitative data); Downloadable or shareable video clips with annotation subtitling; Downloadable or shareable highlight reels with annotation subtitling; AI generated testing session audio transcriptions; Usability Test Design, Scenario – Script preparation; User Experience Test review and analysis and executive Summary report with recommendations; User test respondent recruitment and incentives with a global panel of over 2 million; 3rd party user testing respondent panel integration; White labelling – private labelling of dashboard results; Project management.

Yes it is possible, however, a test with children requires certain protocols to be met in order to ensure all guidelines and laws are being followed.

If you are using your own usability test participants, it depends on how quickly they respond to your invitation. Our platform processing time takes between 1 to 5 minutes, so you can receive results extremely quickly. When using the Userlytics Panel, with broad based demographics, after a thorough QA review of every user test video, results are available in as little as 24 hours, sometimes within hours. For narrowly based demographic targets, it depends on the filters and behavioural screener used to set up the project, and thus how narrowly defined the target Persona is.