User testing
Write a few task prompts, share an unguessable link, and Usero records the screen and the mic while the participant talks through your product. The recording lands next to the rest of your feedback, so a finding can cluster and become a GitHub PR you review and merge.
You can watch a hundred session replays and still not know why someone bailed, because a replay shows the clicks and not the thinking. The thinking is in what they say out loud while they do it.
Most teams never run a real user test because the tooling assumes a research budget. The named platforms gate recruitment behind a panel you pay per participant, lock screen-and-voice recording into an enterprise tier, and hand you a separate dashboard that has nothing to do with the feedback already arriving from your widget and your inbox. So the test, when it happens at all, is one person from the team clicking through on a call while someone scribbles notes, and the recording lives in a Zoom folder nobody opens again. What you actually want is narrow: hand a few real users a short task list, capture what they do and what they say while they do it, and have the findings sit in the same place as the bug reports, so a usability problem can take the same path to a fix as everything else.
How it works
Disclosure: I build Usero, so weigh that. Be clear on what this is and is not. It is unmoderated and link-shared: you write up to twenty plain-text task prompts, set an optional flat reward, and Usero gives you an unguessable link at /ut/<slug>. You send that link yourself (there is no participant panel and no recruiting marketplace, the recruiting is your job). A participant opens it, enters an email, consents, and starts. From there Usero records the screen with rrweb and the microphone in parallel, the participant can mute a segment or drop a timestamped note, and the tasks show on screen as guidance. When they finish, the screen replay and the concatenated audio are stitched together in the dashboard, transcribed, and AI-analyzed, sitting next to the task checklist and their end note. The reward is a manual ledger, not a wired payout: you set an amount, the session is marked ready to pay once it has audio, and you click Pay to mark it paid. Usero does not move the money, you send a gift card or a transfer off-platform, so treat the reward field as a record, not a rail. The payoff is the same wedge as the rest of Usero: a usability finding is feedback, so it clusters with your widget, Slack, and form reports, and from a cluster you can open a GitHub pull request with a first pass at the fix. You review the diff and merge it yourself. Nothing auto-merges.
Usero records the screen with rrweb and the microphone at the same time, so you get the path the user took and the sentence they said while taking it. A replay tells you they hovered the export button twice. The audio tells you they could not find where the download went. The second one is the bug.
You write the task prompts, set an optional reward, and get an unguessable link at /ut/<slug> to send however you already reach users: an email, a DM, a Slack to a power user. An optional allowlist restricts who can start. There is no per-participant panel fee because there is no panel; you bring the participants.
A finished test is not stranded in a research silo. The replay, the transcript, the task completions, and the participant note sit in the same project as your widget and inbox feedback, classified and clustered the same way, so a usability problem ranks next to the bugs instead of in a folder you forget.
This is the part a standalone testing tool does not do. When a test surfaces a real problem and it clusters with other reports of the same thing, you open the cluster and click Create PR. Usero clones your repo and opens a pull request with a first pass at the fix, linked back to the feedback. You review and merge.
The honest objection
No, and if that is what you need, those tools are the right fit and this is not. Two honest limits. First, it is unmoderated only: there is no live interview mode, no scheduling, no moderator-present session. The participant runs the task list on their own while screen and voice record. Second, the reward is a manual ledger, not a payout rail. You set an amount and mark a session paid, but Usero does not transfer money, you settle up off-platform with a gift card or a transfer. So if you need a recruited panel and automated participant payments, use a dedicated research platform. Usero fits the team that already has users to ask, wants screen-and-voice capture without an enterprise contract, and wants the findings to flow into the same pipe that opens its pull requests.
FAQ
Unmoderated only. You write a task list, share a link, and the participant works through it on their own while Usero records their screen and microphone. There is no live interview mode, no scheduling, and no moderator-present session. If you need moderated interviews, a dedicated research platform is the better fit.
You recruit them. Usero gives each test an unguessable link at /ut/<slug> that you share however you already reach users, by email, a DM, or a message to a power user. There is no built-in participant panel and no recruiting marketplace. An optional email allowlist can restrict who is able to start the test.
It is a manual ledger, not a wired payout. You set a flat reward amount per test, a finished session with audio is marked ready to pay, and you click Pay to mark it paid. Usero does not move money: you settle up off-platform with a gift card or a transfer. Treat the reward field as a record of what you owe, not a payment rail.
The screen via rrweb and the microphone in parallel. The participant consents before starting, can mute a segment of audio, and can drop timestamped notes. After the test the screen replay and the concatenated audio are stitched together in the dashboard, transcribed, and AI-analyzed, alongside the task completion checklist and the participant end note.
Yes. A test session is feedback like any other in Usero, so a usability problem clusters with your widget, Slack, and form reports of the same thing. From a cluster you click Create PR and Usero opens a GitHub pull request with a first pass at the fix, linked back to the feedback. You review the diff and merge it yourself. Nothing auto-merges.
Free tier. No credit card. Two-minute install. The AI opens the PR, you merge it.