UserTesting best practices

Review these UserTesting best practices to get the most value from your feedback.

This article applies to: UserTesting 

 

On this page:

• Audience size
• Write effective screener questions
• Choose the right test type for your needs
• Write effective tasks and questions for unmoderated tests
• Preview and pilot your test
• Save test drafts for future use
• Watch session videos at high speed

 

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Audience size

• We recommend a sample size of 10 participants per audience, per test for qualitative research (i.e., think-out-loud tests and Live Conversations).
• For quantitative research (i.e., interaction tests and surveys), you might use as many as 30 participants. 
• For more information, check out our What sample size do I need? article.

 

 

Write effective screener questions

To learn more about screener questions and finding the right audience, check out our Screener questions: Best practices article and our Write screener questions course in UserTesting University. 

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Choose the right test type for your needs

UserTesting offers a variety of test types to help you answer different kinds of questions, from understanding user perceptions to evaluating task success. Use the table below to choose the best option for your goals:

Test type	Best for	When to use it
Think-out-loud test	Understanding how users perceive and interact with experiences	When you want rich, qualitative insights about thoughts, emotions, and mental models
Interaction test	Observing how users complete tasks or navigate workflows	When you want to test usability, find friction points, or validate task flows
Survey	Gathering structured, scalable feedback from users	When you need quantitative data to measure attitudes, preferences, or satisfaction
Live Conversation	Conducting real-time interviews for in-depth exploration	When you need to dive deeper, ask follow-up questions, or co-create with users in the moment

💡 Tip: You can mix methods—for example, pairing a survey with a Live Conversation—to gather both qualitative and quantitative insights.

 

 

Write effective tasks and questions for unmoderated tests

• Avoid leading or biased questions.
• Complement quantitative questions with qualitative ones to allow participants to elaborate on their choice.
• Format text (e.g., bold, italics, etc.) using these shortcuts if you need to emphasize something in a question or task.
• Be mindful of test length. Participants shouldn't spend more than 15-20 minutes on an unmoderated test. 
• Learn more about writing great tasks here.

 

 

Preview and pilot your test

• First, preview your test yourself. This allows you to catch any mistakes.
• Then run a pilot of one participant (per audience).
  • Pilot tests help to verify that:
    • All assets included in the study work properly.
    • All tasks are made clear to participants.
    • You get the desired feedback from the study.
  • Review the results of the pilot and make any updates that are needed before sending the test to a larger number of participants.
• Skipping previewing and piloting your test can result in a wasted test or a test that gets put on hold because assets weren’t entered correctly. Save time and effort, and preview and pilot. 

Pro tip: Launch the same test by adding more participants.

1. In the dashboard, click on the 3 dots to the right of the project you want to modify.
2. From the dropdown, select Add contributors.
   
3. Add the desired number of contributors.
4. Select Add contributors to launch the additional sessions.
   
   

 

 

Save test drafts for future use

• By creating a draft of a test, you can edit, finish, or launch it at a later time.
  • Drafts are automatically saved as you edit your test plan.
  • You can also create drafts to have colleagues review a study before launching it.
• Access drafts from your dashboard. You can sort for just drafts by selecting the Drafts filter in the navigation menu.
  
  
• From there, you can Share your test plan with colleagues or Notify (via Slack integration or email) team members about the results.
  
  
• Pro tips: 
  • Give the study a descriptive title to easily find it in your drafts.
  • Avoid editing the same draft in multiple tabs to make sure all changes are saved.

 

 

Watch session videos at high speed

• Although not funny cat videos, session videos are easily the most fun part of gathering human insights.
• Watching every video is time-consuming, and your team may not have time to do so.
• To make this less time-consuming, watch your videos up to 3x speed.
  • This allows you to pick out memorable insights even faster.
  • To speed up the video, follow these steps:
    1. Select 1x at the bottom of your video player.
    2. Choose the speed you'd like to use.
    3. If you hear or see something unclear, slow down the video to normal speed.