How Kleine Zeitung Made User Testing Scalable
In 2016, Kleine Zeitung made history. As the first Austrian media outlet to introduce a paywall, the regional newspaper stepped into genuinely uncharted territory — in a market where almost nobody believed readers would pay for digital journalism. The pressure was enormous: readers had to be convinced, internal stakeholders brought along, and entire digital workflows rethought from scratch. At the centre of it all was Doris Jany, Digital Product Manager, steering product decisions in a fast-moving newsroom where real user feedback wasn’t a nice-to-have — it was critical. The problem was making it happen at all.
User Testing as the Exception, Not the Rule
In a daily newsroom, traditional user research barely fits into the schedule. Moderated testing sessions opened eyes, but they also exposed just how unsustainable the whole process was. To get 5 participants to show up, Doris had to schedule 8 to 10 — because cancellations were the norm, not the exception.
“Every moderated test took weeks. And often, 50% of people just didn’t show up.”
Recruiting was time-consuming. Recording and analysis added more weeks on top. And by the time results finally landed, the product team had already moved 3 steps further. The real cost wasn’t just the wasted hours — it was the decisions being made without reliable feedback, and the risk that came with that.
“The first user test was eye-opening. But we knew: this isn’t something we can keep doing this way.”
Friday a Click, Monday Insights
The shift came when Doris discovered Userbrain at a conference. Instead of fixed lab appointments and recruitment marathons, the platform offered unmoderated remote tests that could be set up in minutes. Participants from Userbrain’s tester panel were matched and ready — no chasing, no no-shows, no logistics overhead.
“On Friday I launch a Userbrain test, and by Monday morning I have the results. That changed everything. It doesn’t get more efficient than this…”
Suddenly, iterations in the design process were possible while the product team was still working on the details. Participants completed tests independently on their own devices, which meant waiting around for someone who might not appear was simply gone. Today, 80 to 90% of all tests at Kleine Zeitung run through Userbrain — saving the team time, stress, and resources that had previously been swallowed up by logistics.
Insights Before the Meeting Ends
With Userbrain came a new testing culture — and a new pace. Seconds after a test is completed, Userbrain’s AI delivers an automatic summary of the session. The whole Kleine Zeitung team has immediate access to first findings, without waiting for anyone to manually work through recordings. What was once the exclusive domain of UX specialists became a team sport: designers, developers, and even department heads now pull their own insights from the platform while the product team is already spinning up the next iteration.
“My colleagues are usually so curious about the results that they click in as soon as the Userbrain notification pops up and post their first observations in our Slack. That creates incredible momentum, because everyone has a shared picture straight away.”
Doris’s process: a team member who isn’t too deep in the material does the first pass in Userbrain, keeping the perspective fresh. Then the researchers go deeper into the original recordings. The AI summary sets the direction; the recordings carry the detail.
User Testing as a Team Sport
The numbers tell the story clearly. The idea-to-insight cycle shrank from several weeks to under 3 days. Where the team once managed 2 to 3 testing sessions per quarter, they now run more than 10 — with 90% of them on Userbrain. And Doris built this without a dedicated 10-person UX team.
“Before, I had to make the internal case for why we even needed UX. Thanks to Userbrain, continuous user testing is now a fixed point in every product lifecycle.”
The team itself has grown — from a single data person in 2016 to 8 data specialists and 9 product specialists today. But the real shift isn’t headcount. It’s that every release is now anchored in user feedback, and the whole team shares a common understanding of what matters to the people on the other side of the screen. Products at Kleine Zeitung are no longer built for users — they’re built with them.
Results at a Glance
| Before | With Userbrain | |
|---|---|---|
| Avg. time to insight | Several weeks | < 3 days |
| No-show rate | Up to 50% | 0% |
| Tests per quarter | 2–3 | 10+ |
| Unmoderated tests | 0% | 90% |
