Optimal Reviews & Product Details

What I love most about Optimal is that even if I haven’t used it for a while, when I come back to it I don’t need time to relearn anything. It’s all so clear and intuitive that I can just pick up where I left off. And I honestly love how it basically does the heavy lifting on the analysis side, it takes a huge weight off my shoulders. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, when I think about it, there’s nothing I dislike about Optimal or anything that makes me say “I wish this worked differently.” I genuinely mean it, so far, it’s given me everything I’ve needed. Maybe the only thing I can think of is that if we had the option to run unmoderated usability tests there as well, I’d probably do that through Optimal too, and then I’d be able to cover all my research needs in one single tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The pie tree and first-click features in the analysis are very helpful and insightful for seeing which paths members took to reach their destination. Overall, I’m very pleased with the analysis, including the AI insights for the open-ended questions.

Our team was also very pleased by the managed recruitment and the depth of demographics we were able to target. Our members are specific to the NYC metropolitan area and they were able to fine tune the participants to get us those voices specifically. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The change this year to limiting the number of studies—especially counting pilot sessions as part of the official study total—was really frustrating. It would be much better if we could run pilot sessions that don’t count as an official study, so we can get feedback from the team before launching, instead of having to rely solely on draft mode. We were fine with having fewer seats in exchange for more study opportunities. Obviously, the new model is better for Optimal to make money, but it’s less useful for analysis.

The managed recruitment was great, but the process to pay for the participants was misleading. We asked what needed to happen and never was payment brought up. We thought it would just be billed through to our contract, but requiring to have payment prior to recruitment slowed down our process by 3 weeks. That length of delay was not Optimal's process fault, but not knowing they required payment up front was their fault. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that Optimal has a really great and pretty complete set of tools, so I can do nearly all of my user testing and research activities in the same platform. Optimal also gives me a really great amount of insight into the experiences of participants, making it quite easy to crunch the data and see all of the various thoughts users are contributing. Plus, the initial setup was super easy to get going. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A few software bugs in some of Optimal's modules make it difficult or impossible to use certain browsers or devices for observing participants. Extending the live site testing capability into mobile would be a great improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love how easy Optimal is to set up tests and for customers to use it. The mini tutorials really help, as they assist me in fully understanding the methods or explaining them to others. The ease of setup means that I can quickly spin up a test and get it launched to help meet project deadlines. The initial setup of Optimal was very easy, making the process smooth from the start. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The live site testing was a struggle for me to use and I ended up not being able to use it at all. There is a link below the thumbnails that users want to click on instead of starting the task. Also, the first task is repeated, and for the subsequent questions, it's not intuitive for a participant to see both the live site and Likert questions simultaneously. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We really like how easy it is to organize our projects at the folder level and then the prototype for testing. The tool is very intuitive and its learning curve has not been difficult for our new designers at the COE. The ease of testing is remarkable; for our new designers, it is easy to find past projects and review them. The onboarding to the tool is simpler since it is very clear with the necessary fields to develop the tests. Additionally, it was relatively easy to start with the platform, as our lead had previous experience with Optimal and the knowledge transfer was efficient. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think one area that could be improved on the platform is the generation of more executive reports or results for the presentations of results by the researchers or designers on the team, in addition to being able to include prototype tests. I believe that incorporating AI to generate a detailed explanation of the graphs we have in the summaries would help a lot. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Overall, I am very satisfied with Optimal Workshop. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools, and the variety of tests available fully meets my research needs. Setting up tests is straightforward, and the in-app analysis tools are excellent. I can launch a test quickly without much effort. My users appreciate the self-paced, unmoderated tests, finding them easy to complete, and we typically see a strong response rate when we distribute them. What I find most helpful is how quickly I can set up tests, how simple it is for participants to take them independently, and how easily I can collaborate with coworkers on test projects. One of the main advantages of using Optimal Workshop is that its suite of tools covers most of my project requirements. Additionally, I continue to discover new features, such as Segments and the ability to share results via a link, which add even more value to the platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Optimal Workshop does not integrate with my email, so I have to leave the app to handle communication through my email provider. It would be much more convenient if I could send mass emails with test links to participants directly from the Optimal interface. Over the past year, there have been some UI changes that I was not pleased with, and I wish I had been informed about them ahead of time. As far as I can tell, the task follow-up questions are only accessible in the download section via the spreadsheet, which is not ideal. I was also disappointed with the quality of the participant pool; most responses were just one-line answers that were not useful. I am frustrated by the new pricing structure which has limitations on the number of tests, since I often create tests to run with a few users and then discard them, but I cannot make adjustments after receiving feedback. The tool may become unaffordable for smaller teams. There are also some smaller interface issues, such as wanting to see the number of users who completed a test in the main dashboard view, rather than only for live tests. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface was clean and intuitive. It was very easy to use and become familiar with. It was easy to take up projects and leave them and return and pick up where you left without any hard thinking. It was easy to implement too. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ultimatley, the change in the pricing model is what threw us. It didn't suit our needs, there was a big increase in cost and it had limited flexibility. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really enjoy using the survey and card sorting tools. They’re straightforward to set up, and the recent UI improvements have made the researcher’s experience much smoother and more intuitive. Prototype testing is also very user-friendly when it comes to setup (though I haven’t launched a study yet). Overall, each release feels like the platform is getting better at supporting setup and execution, which makes running studies much more efficient. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The biggest drawback is the data output and analytics. While the platform captures the basics, it doesn’t allow me to perform certain cross-analyses or track user flows within questionnaires. For example, in card sorting, it only records the final placements, not how participants interacted with the cards or how long they took to make decisions. As a result, I often need to export the raw data and run additional analysis myself, which adds extra steps that could be avoided if these insights were built in. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the low barrier to entry and minimal learning curve with Optimal. The added visualizations for the IA studies are really helpful for sharing the findings with clients and team members. The studies are easy to set up, and the settings are clear to control due to a simplified user interface. There is a variety of data visualizations that not only help with analysis but also are beneficial for screenshotting and sharing in findings reports since different data can be analyzed in different ways. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to set up a mobile view is not very user friendly and often leads to questionable insights when evaluating design screens. Some of the logic in surveys and post-test questions are not as controllable as I'd like. I do not like the new structure they are planning to switch to where the number of studies will be limited. This is a significant burden to our workflow. We tried to integrate Optimal with Figma but it didn't work well and would not have been suitable for including in a study. With the change in study structure and pricing, I think there are better UX tools out there for a similar price. Optimal's benefit was its low cost and low barrier to entry. However, I don't think it offers the same competitive advantage at a higher price, since it really offers very few differentiators from other products. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Optimal has the most robust research tools on the market. Other tools might offer features for card sorting and tree testing, but they don't come close to Optimal's dynamic analysis tools or robust visual outputs. I've been using it for years, the support is great from Optimal's responsive team, and I love training teammates on the tool because it's so easy to pick up. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If I'm including multiple audiences for a test, I have to create two separate tests or track manually. It would be great if Optimal allowed you to have multiple recruiting links like Survey Monkey that allows you to compare different audiences.

Also, would love to be able to do moderated testing on Optimal - I think I saw that's coming soon or maybe recently released, so maybe I just need to explore it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.