data Articles & Videos

  • Clutter-Free Charts

    Clear out chartjunk (unnecessary visual elements) for a more minimalist and understandable data visualization.

  • Campbell's Law: The Dark Side of Success Metrics

    When organizations optimize metrics at the cost of all else, they expose themselves to metric corruption, which can have disastrous consequences.

  • Pilot Testing in UX Research

    Pilot testing involves conducting one or two test sessions to evaluate the design of a usability study. It checks for any issues before the actual testing phase, leading to more reliable results.

  • Choosing Chart Types

    Pick a chart type that will help you make your point. In the vast majority of cases, use bar charts, line charts, or scatterplots.

  • Confounding Variables: How to Deal with Them (Part 2 of 2)

    Confounding variables can be the result of a variety of factors, but following best practices can help avoid most of them.

  • Confounding Variables 101 (Part 1 of 2)

    Confounding variables can affect the validity of data collected during research studies. It's important for researchers to know what they are and how to identify them.

  • Product Instrumentation: 3 Benefits

    Product instrumentation tells us when and how much people use different aspects of our product. This insight can inform feature prioritization, validate our assumptions, and identify potential user problems.

  • Protecting Participant Data: 6 Best Practices

    Research participants are more vulnerable than ever as researchers conduct remote usability tests, use third-party applications, and store data online. Protect participant privacy by adhering to best practices before, during, and after data collection.

  • 40 Years in UX

    Jakob Nielsen on what has changed and what has remained the same since he started in UX in 1983.

  • Alert Fatigue in User Interfaces

    Dashboards that monitor vast masses of data should guide users' attention to critical values but not by flashing endless alerts without prioritization.

  • Show Me the Data (UX Slogan #15)

    Members of a design team will often argue for different solutions to a UI problem. That's when to say "show me the data" to resolve the debate by empirical insights, rather than who argues the best.

  • Why and How to Use Demographics in UX

    Well-designed questions related to age, gender, race, income and other demographic characteristics help UX researchers screen participants, recruit a diverse participant pool, and segment data. These questions are sensitive and should put research participants at ease.

  • Maintaining the Privacy and Security of Research Participants’ Data

    Maintaining participants’ data privacy and security before, during, and after data collection is critical to the user-research process. It protects participants from data breaches and cyber threats.

  • Creating Engaging Reports & Asynchronous Presentations

    To keep your stakeholders and team members engaged, incorporate storytelling techniques such as writing for your audience, adding anecdotes, and using analogies in your asynchronous research deliverables.

  • Contrast: One of the 3Cs for Better Charts

    Direct your viewer’s attention to your point. Use color, callouts, and titles to communicate your key takeaway.

  • Clutter-Free: One of the 3 Cs for Better Charts

    Cut out the chartjunk; eliminate elements that distract from your data visualization.

  • Choosing Chart Types: Consider Context

    Clearly visualize your UX data by providing context and contrast, while avoiding clutter.

  • Better Charts for Analytics & Quantitative UX Data

    Spreadsheet defaults don't generate the most meaningful visualizations of UX data. Modify charts to enhance Context, Clutter (less of it than spreadsheet software likes!), and Contrast.

  • Partner with Other Research Teams in Your Organization

    To gain a holistic picture of your users, exchange data with the non-UX teams in your company who are collecting other forms of customer data, besides the user research you do yourself. You gain; they gain.

  • Data Visualizations for Dashboards

    To enable fast and reliable understanding of data shown on dashboard overviews, use visualization styles that work with human preattentive visual processing.