Usability Testing Services
Usability testing is a research method where real users attempt real tasks in your product while a researcher observes where they succeed, struggle, or fail. Praxia Insights runs moderated and unmoderated usability tests, recruits participants who match your actual users, and delivers findings ranked by severity so your team knows what to fix first.
Nobody on your team can use your product like a new user. You know where everything is, you know what the labels mean, and you know what the product is supposed to do. That knowledge is exactly what makes internal testing unreliable.
Usability testing removes the guesswork by putting someone who has never seen the product in front of it and asking them to do something. What happens next is usually not what the team predicted.
We handle the whole study: defining the tasks, recruiting participants who match your real users, moderating the sessions, and delivering a prioritized list of what's broken and how badly.
Discuss your usability testing needs
When to Run a Usability Test
Usability testing is worth running whenever the cost of users failing at a task is higher than the cost of finding out first:
Before launch: you're about to release the product and want to catch the problems that would otherwise become support tickets.
After a redesign: something changed and you need to confirm it actually works better for people.
When a funnel leaks: analytics show where users drop off but not why, and the hypothesis list is long.
During onboarding work: first-run experience is where most products lose people, and it's the hardest thing to evaluate internally.
Before engineering commits: a prototype exists and changing it now costs a fraction of changing it later.
What’s Included:
We define the tasks users will attempt and what success looks like for each. Task design determines the quality of the findings: vague tasks produce vague results, and leading tasks produce the answer you already expected.
1. Task and study design
2. Participant recruitment
We write the screener, recruit participants who match your real user profile, verify they qualify, and manage scheduling and reminders. We can also test with your existing customers if you'd prefer.
3. Moderated sessions
A researcher runs each session live, which allows probing when something unexpected happens. Moderation matters most for early-stage concepts and complex workflows, where the most useful findings usually come from something you didn't plan to ask about.
4. Unmoderated testing
Participants complete tasks on their own schedule while their screen and commentary are recorded. Faster and lower cost, well suited to validating specific flows in a product that already exists.
5. Severity-ranked findings
Every issue is rated by how badly it stops people from finishing the task and how many participants ran into it, so your team knows which problems to fix first and which ones can wait.
6. Reporting and walkthrough
A findings report with supporting session clips or quotes, plus a working session with your product and design team if you want to prioritize fixes together.
Project Examples
A NIH-funded study examining neuropsychological predictors of adaptation after trauma.
A five-year randomized control trial (RCT), funded by the U.S. Department of Ed, to study individualized math instruction.
Led a national survey study in partnership with Berklee BEATL & Adobe to study AI use in the music industry.
How We Work
1. Initial consultation and plan
We meet to discuss your specific needs and confirm this is the right approach for the decision you're facing.
2. Project scoping and budget
You receive a custom scope of work with tasks, due dates, and budget before any work begins. Fixed scope, no hourly surprises.
3. Project execution
You receive updates on progress throughout, including recruitment status and fielding milestones.
4. A true partnership approach
We share insights with you as they come up throughout the project, so your team can start acting on what we learn long before the final report is finished.
5. Project completion
We deliver final insights in the format your team will actually use, whether that's a written report, an executive presentation, or a working session.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Five to eight participants per distinct user group will show you the large majority of usability problems, and additional participants mostly repeat findings you've already seen. If you have several meaningfully different user types, plan five to eight for each. Quantitative goals such as measuring task completion rates require considerably larger samples.
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In moderated testing a researcher runs the session live and can probe when something surprising happens. In unmoderated testing participants complete tasks alone while their screen is recorded. Moderated produces deeper insight and costs more. Unmoderated is faster and cheaper and works well for validating known flows. Many studies use both.
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Yes, and it's usually the best time. Clickable prototypes, static wireframes, and even paper sketches produce useful findings. Testing before engineering commits is dramatically cheaper than finding the flaw once the feature is already built and released.
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Most studies run three to five weeks from kickoff to findings. Recruitment is the main variable: general consumer participants are quick to find, while specialized professional users take longer to source and schedule.
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Cost depends on the number of sessions, whether they're moderated, how difficult participants are to recruit, incentive levels, and the depth of deliverables. We provide a fixed-scope quote after an initial consultation.
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Yes. We write the screener, source participants, check that each one genuinely qualifies, handle scheduling and reminders, and administer incentives through Tremendous for both US and international participants.
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Yes. Clients regularly observe remote sessions, and we can set up a separate observer channel so your team can react without participants seeing them. Watching a user fail at something your team was confident about is often more persuasive than any report.
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Yes. We write the screener, recruit to your criteria across the US and internationally, verify participants qualify, manage scheduling and reminders, and administer incentives. We can also work from your existing customer list.
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Yes. Clients regularly observe remote sessions, and we can set up a separate observer channel so your team can react without participants seeing them. Watching a user fail at something your team was confident about is often more persuasive than any report.
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A findings report with issues ranked by severity, supported by session clips or representative quotes, plus specific recommendations. Recordings and transcripts are available on request. Some teams prefer a live walkthrough instead of a written report.
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A/B testing tells you which version performs better at scale. Usability testing tells you why people behave the way they do. A/B tests need traffic and a hypothesis worth testing; usability testing is often what generates that hypothesis in the first place.
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Yes. We've run testing on mobile app features including sessions with participants recruited in pairs who use a product together. Physical products and hardware can be tested in person when handling the object is part of what you need to observe.
Our Experience
More than 60 studies designed, including case study, quasi-experimental, RCT, and mixed-method designs
More than 100 focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted
More than $4 million in grant-funded research managed
Clients spanning Fortune 500 companies, startups, nonprofits, universities, and federally funded programs
Our researchers hold doctorates in educational neuroscience, psychology, and related fields
Ready to see where users get stuck?
Tell us what you're building and what you need to learn. We'll advise on the right method, sample, and scope.