user interviews presents
The 2022

UX Research
Tools Map

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Greetings, traveler

Welcome to the 4th annual UX Research Tools Map, an illustrated guide to the ever-changing world of user research software, proudly brought to you by the team at User Interviews.

In this vast landscape, you’ll find over 230 tools plotted according to their core features and use cases. You can learn more about each product—including its additional features—in the searchable directory at the bottom of this page (due south, as the raven flies). Or, explore the world of UXR tools on your own terms by downloading the full list of tools, plus an illustrated copy of the map.

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There are 6 distinct, color-coded regions of the map. Within these regions are 18 smaller territories that correspond to specific use cases and features. Each category is represented by different cartographic symbols as well as text labels. Tools that fall within multiple categories are located in "crossover" territory, represented by a mix of 2 or more types of topography.

Grand Duchy of Insight Management
  • Transcriptionshire (Transcription - 1A)
  • Archivale (Research Repository - 3D)
  • Note Taking Knoll (Note Taking - 3A)
  • The Great Understanding (Analysis - 1B, 1C)
High Kingdom of Recruiting and Panel Management
  • Fields of Gold (Incentives - 2F)
  • Sands of Time (Scheduling - 1F, 2F)
  • Deep Pool (Participant Panel - 3E, 3F)
  • The Wisewood (CRM - 2D)
Commune of Creative Thinking and Design
  • Storms Head (Brainstorming and Collaboration - 4B, 4C, 5B, 5C)
  • Prototyping Point (Wireframing and Prototyping - 6A, 7A)
Imperial Walled City of End-to-End Platforms
  • End-to-end research tools (4D, 5D, 4E, 5E, 4F, 5F)
Auld Alliance of Active Research
  • The Visions (Video Interviews - 9A, 10A)
  • Surveylands (Surveys - 6D, 6E)
  • Singular Steppes (Specialized Studies - 7B, 8B)
  • Ancient and Unwavering River of Everflowing Insights (Usability Testing - 5C-10C, 5D)
Principality of Passive Insight Collection
  • Feedback Fens (Automated Feedback - 7D, 8D)
  • The Eye (Session Analytics - 9D, 10D)
  • Quantitative Cove (Product Analytics - 8E, 8F)
  • Twin Marshes (A/B Testing - 10F)
Mythical Beasts
  • G Dragon  (Google Workspace)
  • Megalodon 365  (Microsoft Office Suite)
Offers recruiting for native tests only
Offers recruiting
Integrates with User Interviews
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Learn more about these categories on the User Interviews blog.

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Find a tool

Search for a tool by name, or use the category filters below to explore the database by use case. Curious about how we defined those categories? You can read all about that here.

zzBlankspace
Integrates with UI
Brainstorming
Wireframing & Prototyping
Product Analytics
Session Analytics
A/B Testing
Automated User Feedback
Surveys
Specialized Studies
Usability Testing
Video Interviews
Standalone UXR Platforms
CRM
Participant Panel
Scheduling
Incentives
Transcription
Note Taking
Analysis
Research Repository
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Get the full list of 230+ tools and a PDF version of the map.

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User Interviews is the most open platform for research recruitment and panel management. We're compatible with any testing tool or research method—and, we have a growing suite of integrations with popular tools (available on any User Interviews plan).

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about the map

Categories and Definitions

There are 6 distinct, color-coded regions of the map, which correspond to the six broad categorical buckets (insight management, recruiting and panel management, creative thinking and design, end-to-end platforms, active research, and passive insight collection).

Within these regions are 18 smaller territories that correspond to specific use cases and features, as defined below:

High Kingdom of Recruiting and Panel Management

Participant recruitment and panel management tools help you find the right participants for your research and streamline the participant management process by automating operational tasks related to recruiting, like incentives distribution and scheduling.
Incentives (Fields of Gold)
Incentive tools automate the task of sending incentive payments to participants.
Scheduling (Sands of Time)
Scheduling tools help you find and schedule mutually convenient times for your research sessions.
Panel Management & Research CRM (The Wisewood)
In this context, a CRM is a tool that allows you to build and manage your own panel of participants—a database with participant metadata and research history.
Participant Panel (Deep Pool)
Research panel solutions help you find, recruit, and screen participants from an external pool of users, (not your own).
Note: In order for us to consider its panel to be a tool’s primary use case, the panel must be agnostic. In other words, researchers must be able to recruit participants for research on any other platform, not just the platform associated with this panel.

Built for ReOps, loved by researchers, trusted by participants

Research Hub from User Interviews is the #1 panel software for teams that do research at scale. It replaces 5+ tools with a single, powerful platform for panel management and recruitment automation. Do more, stress less.

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Grand Duchy of Insight Management

Insight management tools are used to store, organize, and analyze data collected through user research, passive insight collection methods, and customer-facing teams.
Transcription (Transcriptionshire)
Tools for creating a text transcription of your audio or video interviews.
Research Repository (Archivale)
A research repository is a single, centralized place for storing, tagging, and keeping track of all the user research insights, data, artifacts, and relevant user feedback that you collect.
Note: Tools that do not allow researchers to import data and insights from other sources do not qualify as repositories.
Note Taking (Note Taking Knoll)
Note taking tools enable you to take efficient notes during your research sessions, save them, and organize them for future analysis.
Analysis (The Great Understanding)
Analysis software helps you organize, analyze, synthesize, and glean meaningful insights from research data.
Note: Many testing and data collection tools have built-in features designed to interpret the data gathered via the same platform. In these cases, analysis is listed as an additional feature rather than a primary use case.

Commune of Creative Thinking and Design

Creative thinking and collaborative design tools enable you to brainstorm, collaborate, and create visuals that help you get feedback from participants and your team.
Brainstorming and Collaboration (Storms Head)
Brainstorming and collaboration software is designed to help you to collaboratively explore ideas with minimal friction.
Wireframing and Prototyping (Prototyping Point)
This category includes flexible tools that help you map out the connections between ideas, steps, or sketches of a user flow, and design tools for creating a simple mockup that approximates a real product.

Auld Alliance of Active Research

Active research tools are used to conduct studies with participants to answer a specific research question or enable a particular business decision (e.g. surveys, usability studies, interviews). This is different from data collection tools that run continuously and independently of any specific research study—if that’s what you’re looking for, journey on to the Principality of Passive Insights Collection.
Video Interviews (The Visions)
Video conferencing software enables you to conduct and record video calls with participants, either 1:1 or with multiple participants (e.g. a focus group).
Surveys (Surveylands)
Tools for creating a survey that you send to participants.
Note: This does NOT include automated in-app surveys or screener surveys (those meant to be completed before the “real” research session to filter out qualified participants).
Specialized Studies (Singular Steppes)
Specialized research tools are expressly designed for the purpose of conducting a specific type of research (diary studies, field studies, card sorts, tree tests, etc.).
Usability Testing (Ancient and Unwavering River of Everflowing Insights)
Usability testing tools enable users to test out a product or prototype and share their feedback, either live (moderated) or asynchronously (unmoderated).

Principality of Passive Insight Collection

Passive insight collection tools collect data and insights while users interact with your product, independent of any specific research project. Product analytics, voice of the customer (VoC), and automated in-app surveys fall into this category.
Automated Feedback (Feedback Fens)
These tools allow you to trigger automated feedback requests at key points in the user experience (e.g., NPS surveys, in-app polls).
Session Analytics (The Eye)
Session analytics tools allow you to track and analyze user interactions with a product or prototype in real time through heatmaps, mouse/eye tracking, and session recording.
Product Analytics (Quantitative Cove)
Product analytics software is used to collect and analyze quantitative data on user behavior within your product.  This category includes analytics tools used by product, marketing, and CX teams to monitor and optimize the customer experience.
A/B Testing (Twin Marshes)
Tools that enable you to show different users different variants of a page or feature, to see which variant performs best.

Imperial Walled City of End-to-End Platforms

UX research software suites offer a single solution for recruiting, analyzing, and conducting several types of user research. These tools are designed to be used across multiple phases of the research process (if not end-to-end). Often—but not always—their broad suite of tools and “all-in-one” approach means that these platforms are not as open or integration-friendly as ecosystem players with a narrower feature set.
Cartographers
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Katryna Balboni
House Marketing
Teller of Tales
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Lizzy Burnam
House Marketing
Cobbler of Copy
Hand-drawn rest of a serpent
Holly Holden
House Marketing
Tamer of Webflow
Hand-drawn rest of a tiger
Rachell Lee
House Marketing
Protector of Words
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