Key Concepts
Before diving into UserLens, it helps to understand the core concepts and how they connect.
Projects
A project is a container for a research study. It holds your participants, tasks, sessions, and synthesis work.
Projects have two modes:
| Mode | Description | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Moderated | You facilitate sessions live with participants | Interviews, contextual inquiry, think-aloud testing |
| Unmoderated | Participants complete tasks independently | Large-scale usability testing, surveys, remote async research |
Projects move through a lifecycle: Draft → Active → Completed → Archived
Participants
A participant is someone taking part in your research. Each participant has:
- Contact info: Name and email
- Usage level: How frequently they use your product
- Scheduling: Interview and/or usability session dates
- Status: Invited, Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, or No-Show
Usage Levels
Usage levels help you segment participants and match them to appropriate tasks:
| Level | Description | Task Difficulty Match |
|---|---|---|
| Non-User | Never used the product | Easy tasks |
| Occasional | Uses product infrequently | Medium tasks |
| Active | Regular, frequent user | Hard tasks |
Tasks
A task is something you ask participants to do during a session. Tasks include:
- Title: What the participant will do
- Difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard, or All Users
- Objective: The goal in one sentence
- Scenario: Context that sets up the task
- Steps: Numbered instructions
- Success Criteria: How you determine if they succeeded
- Follow-up Questions: Custom questions asked after completion
Difficulty Mapping
Task difficulty determines which participant segments see the task:
Easy → Non-Users, Abandoned Users
Medium → Occasional Users
Hard → Active Users, Power Users
All → Everyone
This ensures you're not asking novices to do expert tasks (or vice versa).
Sessions
A session is a single research encounter with a participant. It captures:
- When it happened
- How long it took
- Which tasks were completed
- Any recordings or notes
- Metrics like clicks and keystrokes (for unmoderated)
Recordings
UserLens supports session recordings in two ways:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| External | Link to a recording in Zoom, Teams, Meet, or Webex |
| Internal | Upload a recording file directly to UserLens |
Recordings can be transcribed automatically for easier analysis.
Synthesis
Synthesis is where you make sense of your research. It includes:
Research Questions
The high-level questions your study aims to answer. Define these before you start collecting data.
Sticky Notes
Observations captured during or after sessions. Each note has a type:
| Type | Color | Use For |
|---|---|---|
| Barrier | Red | Problems, friction, blockers |
| Insight | Yellow | Observations, patterns, learnings |
| Opportunity | Green | Ideas, improvements, possibilities |
| Quote | Blue | Direct participant quotes |
Clusters
Groups of related sticky notes. Use affinity mapping to organize notes into themes.
Hypotheses
Testable statements about user behavior or needs. Each hypothesis has:
- Statement: What you believe to be true
- Status: Testing, Validated, Disproven, or Unclear
- Priority: High, Medium, or Low
- Segments: Which user segments it applies to
- Evidence: Notes and observations that support or refute it
Coverage
Coverage shows how well your tasks address your hypotheses:
- Full coverage: Every hypothesis has at least one linked task
- Partial coverage: Some hypotheses lack tasks
- Alignment issues: Task difficulty doesn't match hypothesis segments
The Coverage tab helps you identify gaps before running sessions.
Analytics
UserLens calculates standard research metrics:
NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Measures likelihood to recommend. Ranges from -100 to +100.
- Promoters (9-10): Enthusiastic advocates
- Passives (7-8): Satisfied but not enthusiastic
- Detractors (0-6): Unhappy, may discourage others
NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors
SUS (System Usability Scale)
Measures perceived usability. Ranges from 0 to 100.
- 80+: Excellent
- 68: Average
- Below 68: Needs improvement
Teams & Permissions
UserLens uses a three-level hierarchy:
Organization
└── Teams
└── Projects
| Role | Scope | Can Do |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Organization | Everything, including billing |
| Admin | Organization | Manage teams and members |
| Member | Organization | Access assigned teams |
| Lead | Team | Manage team projects and members |
| Member | Team | Access team projects |
| Editor | Project | Full project access |
| Viewer | Project | Read-only access |
How It All Connects
Research Questions
↓
Hypotheses ←──────────────────┐
↓ │
Tasks ──→ Sessions ──→ Notes │
↓ ↓ │
Participants Clusters│
↓ │
Validated Hypotheses
↓
Insights
- Start with research questions
- Form hypotheses to test
- Create tasks linked to hypotheses
- Recruit participants matched to task difficulty
- Run sessions and capture notes
- Organize notes into clusters
- Use evidence to validate or disprove hypotheses
- Extract insights to share with stakeholders
Next Steps
Now that you understand the concepts:
- Take the Interface Tour to see where everything lives
- Create Your First Project for a hands-on walkthrough