Articles & Videos

  • User Panels 101

    A well-built internal user panel saves time, reduces costs, and strengthens your organization’s connection to real users.

  • Why So Many Info Tips Are Bad (and How to Make Them Better)

    Information tips can clarify complex UIs, but they should not hide essential information, trigger redundant information, or disrupt the current workflow.

  • 4 Things GenAI Needs for Better Content Design

    Product-specific genAI needs to follow common digital writing practices in order to better fit users’ scanning needs.

  • State of UX 2026: Design Deeper to Differentiate

    UX faced instability in 2025 from layoffs, hiring freezes, and AI hype; now, the field is stabilizing, but differentiation and business impact are vital.

  • UX Hiring: Insights from a Design Recruiter

    Design recruiter Hang Xu shares why UX job applications get rejected, what craft means to hiring teams, and the shifting power dynamics in the job market.

  • Don’t Start with AI, Start with the Problem

    To build good products, start by identifying the problem, not the solution. Especially with AI, if you start with a technology, delivering real value to your users and customers will be difficult.

  • Humanizing AI Is a Trap

    LLMs humanize by design. Adding personality/emotion amplifies risk. Design real tools, not fake friends.

  • Why Most Product Teams Aren't Really Empowered

    Although product teams say they're empowered, many still function as feature factories and must follow orders.

  • Stop Misrecruits: Add Foils to Your Screener

    When creating screener surveys, use fake answer options – called foils – to spot misrecruits before they join your study. Learn how to craft foils that protect your data and catch cheaters early.

  • UX Quiz: 2025 Year in Review

    Test your usability knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles that we published last year.

  • 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

    Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb for UX and not specific usability guidelines.

  • Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking

    Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users. The mapping process also reveals any holes in existing user data.

  • Journey Mapping 101

    A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal.

  • How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation

    Step-by-step instructions to systematically review your product to find potential usability and experience problems. Download a free heuristic evaluation template.

  • When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods

    Modern day UX research methods answer a wide range of questions. To know when to use which method, each of 20 methods is mapped across 3 dimensions and over time within a typical product-development process.

  • Service Blueprints: Definition

    Service blueprints visualize organizational processes in order to optimize how a business delivers a user experience.

  • Design Thinking 101

    What is design thinking and why should you care? History and background plus a quick overview and visualization of 6 phases of the design thinking process. Approaching problem solving with a hands-on, user-centric mindset leads to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage.

  • Usability (User) Testing 101

    UX researchers use this popular observational methodology to uncover problems and opportunities in designs.

  • User Interviews: How, When, and Why to Conduct Them

    User interviews have become a popular technique for getting user feedback, mainly because they are fast and easy. Use them to learn about users’ perceptions of your design, not about its usability.

  • Usability 101: Introduction to Usability

    What is usability? How, when, and where to improve it? Why should you care? Overview answers basic questions + how to run fast user tests.

  • User Journeys vs. User Flows

    User journeys and user flows both describe processes users go through in order to accomplish their goals. While both tools are useful for planning and evaluating experience, they differ in scope, purpose, and format.

  • Affinity Diagramming for Collaboratively Sorting UX Findings and Design Ideas

    Use affinity diagramming to cluster and organize research findings or to sort design ideas in ideation workshops.

  • UX Research Cheat Sheet

    User research can be done at any point in the design cycle. This list of methods and activities can help you decide which to use when.

  • Using “How Might We” Questions to Ideate on the Right Problems

    Constructing how-might-we questions generates creative solutions while keeping teams focused on the right problems to solve.

  • Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

    iOS 26’s visual language obscures content instead of letting it take the spotlight. New (but not always better) design patterns replace established conventions.

  • User-Interface Elements: Glossary

    Use this glossary to quickly clarify definitions for key graphical user-interface elements and controls.

  • Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users

    Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.

  • Card Sorting: Uncover Users' Mental Models for Better Information Architecture

    In a card-sorting study, users organize topics into groups. Use this research method to create an information architecture that suits your users' expectations.

  • Open-Ended vs. Closed Questions in User Research

    Open-ended questions result in deeper insights. Closed questions provide clarification and detail, but no unexpected insights.

  • The Definition of User Experience (UX)

    "User experience" encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products.