Articles & Videos

  • UX Quiz: 2024 Year in Review

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

  • Check Error-Message Quality with a Scoring Rubric

    Use a scoring rubric to objectively assess error message quality based on their visibility, communication, and efficiency. Involve your colleagues and reduce skepticism of your analysis.

  • Object-Oriented UX (OOUX)

    Identifying objects, their characteristics, and relationships in an experience can help simplify designs and make systems easier to use by aligning with people's mental models. (Credit: Sophia Prater)

  • Wizard of Oz Method in UX

    There are five steps to run the Wizard of Oz Method, a moderated research method in which a user interacts with an interface that appears to be automated but is actually controlled to some degree by a person.

  • Content Dispersion: The Downside of Mobile-first Design

    Content dispersion occurs when the content of a responsive webpage appears overly large and stretched out on large laptop or desktop screens. What negative affects can it create?

  • Testing Visual Design: A Comprehensive Guide

    Use methods like 5-second testing, first-click testing, and preference testing to gain insights into how users perceive your visual design.

  • Sample Sizes for Qualitative Studies

    When choosing your sample size for a qualitative research study, consider these three factors: the diversity of your target group, your research scope, and the researcher’s skill level.

  • AI for Tone: Avoid Sounding Like a Robot

    Learn how to use AI chats like ChatGPT to write copy that doesn’t sound like a robot wrote it.

  • Experience Design: The Next Iteration of UX?

    As an umbrella term for UX/CX work, “experience design” reflects blended roles and core human-centered principles.

  • Tools for Unmoderated Usability Testing

    There are many tools for unmoderated usability testing on the market. Choose a tool that offers the right features for your research.

  • 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

    Empathy maps help UX teams visualize user attitudes and behaviors, building a shared understanding of end users while highlighting gaps 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 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

    Design thinking is a user-centered process that helps teams understand needs, generate ideas, test solutions, and drive innovation.

  • 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

    Usability makes designs easy, efficient, and satisfying to use. Improve it through early, repeated user testing with real users

  • User Journeys vs. User Flows

    User journeys and user flows both describe processes users go through in order to accomplish their goals, but 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.