We’ve all been asked to give product feedback in one way or another – a pop-up message after completing a purchase, an email asking how your visit went, or a poll appearing on your social media feed. They all have one thing in common: a real person behind them, looking for valuable insights.

I’m one of those people! My role as Senior UX Researcher involves speaking to Immersive users and gathering their feedback to help the company make tangible improvements. UX, or user experience, is at the heart of what I do. And it’s been around for longer than you might think.

What is UX?

It’s believed that the origins of UX began in 4000 BC with the ancient Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui, the spatial arrangement of objects in relation to the flow of energy. In essence, designing the most user-friendly spaces possible.

A short skip to 500 BC, and you can see UX at play with the Ancient Greeks' use of ergonomic principles (also known as human factors), defined as “an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely.”

In short, people have been concerned about creating great user experiences for thousands of years.

How does Immersive get feedback?

Bringing you back to the present day, let me walk you through a recent research study undertaken with Immersive Labs users and what their experiences and feedback led to.

In May this year, we sent out a survey to our users asking them about their needs for customised content. The feedback was given directly to the team working on the feature, helping to inform their design choices and confirm or question any assumptions they had about user needs.

In July, we invited users, including Training Manager and community member mworkman to take part in a pilot study for the Custom Lab Builder, giving them exclusive access to the first iteration of the feature. They could use the builder in their own time, creating real examples of custom labs using their own content and resources. This gave them a realistic experience and highlighted issues along the way.

What does Immersive do with that feedback?

In August, those users joined a call with us to provide their feedback and suggestions. From these calls, we gained insights and statistics that were presented to the entire Product Team, voicing our customers’ needs. We then used this to shape the direction of the lab builder feature before its release.

Customers told us that they wanted to create labs based on their own internal policies and procedures, which would require more flexible question-and-answer formats for tasks. They also wanted more formatting options and the ability to add media to labs. 

In response to this feedback, we increased the number of task format types from three to five, and we’ll continue to add to this. We also added the ability to include multiple task formats in the same lab. Users also now have the option to upload images and include rich text within their custom labs, enhancing the layout and customisation experience.

The Custom Lab Builder was released in October 2024 with an update pushed in December, and we’re still working on improving it! Throughout this first quarter of 2025, we’ve released more new features, including drag and drop, free text questions, and instructional tasks in the Lab Builder. 

How can you get involved? 

Once again, we’ll be calling on our users to give feedback on their experiences with these features, continuing to involve you in our design process to ensure that our products and experiences reflect what users are looking for. 

Throughout 2025, Immersive Labs will be providing opportunities for our users to come along to feedback sessions, have their opinions heard through surveys, and many more exciting chances to talk to the people behind the product.   

Follow our Community Forum for hot-off-the-press opportunities!

For more guidance on Lab Builder, visit our Help Center.