Why we built UserInsights

UserInsights is a platform to help you get real user feedback on well, anything. This is why we built it.

I've got close to 15 years of experience in online marketing & conversion rate optimization. I also happen to spend a lot of time chasing after my startup dreams with late nights spent developing at the keyboard.

For someone like me, that is to say, someone who seems to know what they're doing... well, I've sure had a lot of failed projects. In fact, I think I just hit the 10 mark. 10 failed projects under my belt.

And those are just the ones that I remember. The ones that hurt.

Here's the thing about that.

I've spent a ton of time reviewing and doing post mortems on these. Trying to figure out why my things failed. I'll save you the presentation, but suffice to say it's probably because I didn't get enough feedback.

I didn't take the time to engage with users early on. If I had simply shown them what I was building, UserInsights would probably not exist. I'd be off doing some other thing.

Remote user testing isn't new. Not by a long shot. There are large, entrenched companies serving massive clients up on the biggest hill on the biggest side of town.

So we didn't build a remote user feedback service. We didn't even niche down and build a remote usability / UX testing service (though we probably could have).

We built a platform for insights on any facet of your business.

Remote user sessions are for big companies. The type of companies that do survey groups and massive multi-million dollar replatforming projects.

What we sat down to do is build a service for the rest of us. People without a PH.D in survey analysis or psychographic segmentation, but with a website, a vision and a whole lot of grit.

We set out to build something that can help you create more user friendly websites. We believe in user centric products. Over our careers, the best converting products have been those that most closely align with their users goals.

“Every product is unique, if only due to their unique audience. The users get to determine what is valuable, terrible and everything in between.”

So that's what UserInsights is. We built the platform based on a specific outcome - to get you actionable feedback so you can refine, enhance and optimize your website for the people who use it.

The Features

We didn't bake every idea we had for the product into the initial version that you see live right now. Instead, we focused specifically on a single task - getting and implementing user feedback.

Image
Creating a new project allows you to choose from a handful of real world test types.

Right now, as a brand, you sign up, select one of the test types you'd like to run and then the project goes live. We architected the system around speed. Who wants to wait 3-5 days to get their feedback?

Most of our projects get completed within an hour or two.

Next, we thought about the next step. Just getting feedback isn't enough. It's the execution on that feedback that produces value. So we built a notes system. Take notes on the individual tests as you watch them and then download the notes from all of the videos, directly on the main project page.

Image
The 'watch' page where you can take notes, or share a test with a colleague

How to get started - My recommendations

If you've never done something like this, I recommend picking up a 5 pack. If you're used to traditional marketing modalities, you're probably thinking you need hundreds, maybe thousands of these. I am pretty confident that 5 videos can find about 80-90% of your core issues and give you a nice, heaping stack of things to look at a little closer. If you want to dig deeper on why here's a bit more on why 5 is a really good number.

Get our case studies emailed to you.

Want to stay on top of best practices? Get our data packed case studies delivered to your inbox.