Usertesting once had a useful service called "peek". Simple website testing without much fuss. Their other services are too complex for my needs. Lately I tried to use peek again and they said a test would arrive soon. It never did. i mailed the support and they replied with a note like "yeah, we don't offer that service anymore". The signup page for peek is still open though. That left a bad taste in my mouth.
Funny, the link they posted here goes exactly to the peek service. When you put in a url, you get a text "it wont be long". Well, last time it took forever. A better user experience would be "you are nr ... in the queue. bookmark this link to check your position later".
Hi funlover, I'm really sorry you had such a bizarre and disappointing experience. I work for UT as well, and we absolutely offer Peek as a service, and are actively working on it. I'm currently looking into why you would have gotten that answer.
Our current average turnaround time for website tests is actually 2 hours (from when someone orders a Peek test to when it is delivered to their inbox). Unfortunately, your test may have fallen through the cracks, and our support typically takes care of those. Thanks for your feedback, and feel free to PM if you have any questions.
Peek is still running, but it is not a service intended for repeat use. It is meant to be a free and easy sample of the primary UserTesting product: videos of people completing tasks on a website or app. I admit this could be more clearly communicated.
I'm happy to answer questions by PM if you'd prefer not to talk to sales or support (I'm a UX researcher).
Yet you say on your site "Peek is always free, and you can run 3 Peek tests every month.".
That is exactly what I mean with "leaves a bad taste in my mouth". Advertising a service with false promises. I am happy to pay for webservices, but not if I have been tricked into using them in the first place.
You should be straight about it right on the frontpage. Like "First test is free, additional tests are $X".
I believe what was meant by "not intended for repeat use" is that Peek is a very limited product, meant to introduce people to usability testing.
We do allow and even encourage people to test their sites out on Peek up to 3 times each month, but we hope that as their needs grow and they recognize their needs for targeted demographics, custom tests, and many of the other great features we offer they'll consider using our full product.
Sorry for the confusion, we are certainly not trying to deceive anyone.
FunLover, I really liked peek too. I asked UserTesting if there was anyway to purchase more peeks, but they just pushed their more expensive product. So I created my own affordable remote user testing service that is similar to peek. Check out UserBob.com. Feel free to ask me any questions. I'm the founder.
It looks potentially all of useful/fun/interesting, though unfortunately it seems to be experiencing severe video performance problems right now so most of the videos/playlists don't seem to get past the initial intro/trailer for Peek itself.
Funny, the link they posted here goes exactly to the peek service. When you put in a url, you get a text "it wont be long". Well, last time it took forever. A better user experience would be "you are nr ... in the queue. bookmark this link to check your position later".