UserTestingReviews 148

I've been a "Panel Member" for a little more than 5 months now. Let me say this first, it is not a form of online employment that someone can make a living on. I earn about $50 - $100/week participating in surveys and user tests that I QUALIFY for. That means screeners populate my Available Test page, I take them to see if I qualify, and if I do I take the survey or test.

I have read the negative reviews and I have come to this conclusion. The people complaining about User Testing sound like they do not belong to a demographic attracts a large number of tests or, they were not being forthright in their answers while taking the screeners (attempting to forge qualification) and as a result disqualified themselves. The reason why they experience fewer screeners and tests is because the system is intuitive and recognizes these fraudulent attempts to qualify. They receive feedback from their client customers even though a panel member may not receive a rating. I have received only 4 reviews after 75 tests but, I guarantee if I started fudging my screener answers I would soon find little or no opportunities to participate.

I have taken hundreds of screeners that I did not qualify me for testing. I understand the psychology of being turned down over and over again, believe me. I am grateful for the tests I do qualify for. The extra little bit of cash has been nice and I really like contributing to the user experience for product and web site development for User Testing customers.

If you are new to User Testing, DO NOT just start trying to qualify for tests! Go to the Help Center and read all of the FAQ's and read as many of the Support Articles as possible! This will help make you much more successful. Remember, this is a serious service to the clients User Testing solicits to. Take that seriously and put yourself in the proper mindset. I hope this helps.

They don't care about you if you work for a company that is less than 50 people. The "Account Executive" who supposed to help me set up a trial did absolutely nothing. Started from 15 minutes late from the meeting, the late response to the email, to the end, he just stopped writing back. Got NOTHING from the trial except me myself had to tell them what to do. WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE EVER. The whole back and forth took me over a week. IF you need your customer to tell you what to do, you are not doing your job, Josh, or the whole UserTesting Team.

I don't normally write reviews, but this was very frustrating experience, from technical issues to customer service problems.

Technical - I had to record the same video of me talking for five minutes - three times because they had many technical issues.

Customer service - after writing a nice email asking to solve this problem, I've got a response after 3 days saying "for tester assistance, go to *link*" (as if the lady couldn't pass the request to someone else herself). Anyway, after going to the link and writing basically the same thing, after 2 more days I got another response where a guy answered something completely different. It was obvious that he didn't even care to read the whole email I sent (why would he care, we're "only users".).

Horrible horrible horrible

People on this site are severely lacking common sense or patience. I've been doing this for over two years and there are tons of test you don't qualify for. However I do easily make over $200 weekly which isn't bad at all. Now I'm in college and $200 without leaving my room is great. It's almost a part time job.

The trick
Make sure the site is open on a tab at all times, turn on notifications, sometimes manually refresh the testing page as I've found that sometimes I'd have test waiting and not hear the notification bell or see a new test until I refreshed

There are tons of screeners you won't pass but there are others that you will. It is ANNOYING but that's the nature of the job. I try to work on it 6 days a week minimum of 4 test as day. You get paid $10 every test with the average test lasting 8-13 minutes. Not including the $30 - $60 payouts for the longer test.

Pay Scale
$10 for 8-20 minutes of work
$30 for 30 minutes
$60 for 60 minutes

It works for me bottom line... I get the annoyance but people complaining about doing 4 screeners and not getting a hit are completely clueless. It's annoying because I don't want to see them get a bad reputation that they don't deserve.

I highly suspect that the site is technically not a scam but they are dishonest in that what is happening is that as you complete "screener" questions you are providing important information about yourself that is being compiled and sold. The more tests you "screen for" the more they know about you. The more desperate you are to get a gig the more screeners you fill out. That is the real reason they put the fear of God in you to "tell the truth" so you won't get disqualified from other tests. Here's a screen shot you will see a lot of, consider it a losing lottery ticket. "Your profile is not a winner this time - Please try again!"

It's been 4 days. A couple of screener questions, no tests so far.
The only way to know if there are any available tests is constantly going to the site to check and answer some filters if available.

I wanted to make at least $40 or $50 per month, which seems hard to achieve so far.
At this moment it feels like a waste of time, I could give it a try for 7 more days or so, I'll update if my review changes.

And last but not least, I'd like to know why their app is not on Play Store, is that Google does not approve it?

I started strong but then like so many I spent too much time trying to get qualified and was rejected again after again. I also had a iPhone, Android and PC for testing and scored high on the ones I was able to get.

After the initial honeymoon phase I wasn't able to get anything on any device.

My thoughts are that they have so many testers now that they are flooded with 'talent' and don't have enough work to go around. Save yourself the frustration and head elsewhere. But, then you never know, it might work out.
J

The time wasted trying to qualify for tests does not receive compensation. Unfortunately this means that UserTesting is an incredibly inefficient use of time. I have been active with UserTesting for a year and a half now. In that time I have only qualified for TWO tests. When I did those TWO tests all went smoothly and payment was prompt. Every other time a "screener" has disqualified me based on questions that have already been answered as part of my user profile. UserTesting needs to either pay a small sum for taking the screeners or have a better filter so that test screeners for which a reviewer does not qualify will not end up in the inbox.

I believe they accept you after stealing your personal information. They ask initial "Scanner" question(s) before you are taken to recording for payment. EVERY TIME, you are denied the recording because your "scanner" questions did not qualify. However it seems they are just stealing these "Scanner" responses and your personal information, and you do not receive anything in return. I have been on the site for a week, have not qualified for any (except 1) of the surveys in any of the formats. The 1 I did qualify for then asked me to download the UserTesting.com Chrome Extension, Recording Device and App before I could continue. Once I downloaded everything, the site then froze and would not let me continue.

I have a 5.0 rating. Problem with this site is the recorder they use. I can't tell you how many times it screws up and I can't finish the test. So, I'm out money and time. If you complain or report the issue they will hold that against you. They actually tell you, we will credit you this time, but if it keeps happening then we may have to remove your account. Look I don't care if you don't credit me, but don't penalize me for letting you know your software doesn't work! So, I don't report problems anymore. It's crazy! How is it the tester's fault? Your software is screwy. The screeners are silly too. I am sure they are selling those answers. Wasting hours not qualifying. There has to be a better site for testing than this. WASTE OF TIME!

It's not a scam, if you land a qualifier and have a good test you get paid exactly 7 days to the minute after you complete the test.

Yes, you will take a lot of qualifier tests before you pass one (You pass maybe 10% of qualifiers on average pending your demographics), but to qualify for a test you just have to answer a few questions, takes literally 15 seconds per test.

Qualifiers are specific because the clients want their specific target audience to test their site. You don't want say someone who doesn't care for cars testing a car enthusiast website, you want someone who will actually want to use the site to test it.

It's not a full time job, but you will earn some side money.

UserTesting is an interesting survey company to say the least. Even when a tester has a respectable track record of good reviews they take it upon themselves to lower your rating in one instance for biased costumers who want free advice and subsequently snub your payment. There is an unspoken rule at this company in which you cannot tell the customer that their (ie. Site, idea, etc.) is bad or risk getting a low rating thus decreasing your chance of getting further tests. As others have also pointed out there is no consistency to the tests themselves unfortunately. The majority of tests don't even align within your own demographics or area of knowledge. The operators of the site are disrespectful and care very little about the tester. I can only imagine with the percentage they receive from the back breaking work testers do all day the least they could do is provide a decent service whose operators respect their testers. I've been also noticing a high amount of spam to my email address and calls to my phone number. Don't be a tester for this company, you'd be better off flipping burgers honestly. I made a mistake signing up with them.

It seems to work, but they give you screener after screener and no jobs. The screening tests are very specific and maybe I was just unlucky, but it felt very much like a scammy survey site where they try to get as much free info from you as they can and never actually give you paid work. The reason for the 1 star though is that when I tried to remove the recording software off my computer it didn't let me. I am still trying to get rid of it! Not impressed at all!