The hottest User Experience Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

چرا بسیاری از کسب و کارهای کوچک در کانادا، وب سایت‌های بی‌مصرف و تاریخ گذشته دارند

DiGiTalk Newsletter • 117 implied HN points • 13 May 23
💼 Business User Experience
  1. Publishing superficial content on a website can hinder its mission, copy-pasting content can be detrimental to credibility and online presence.
  2. Ensuring a website is mobile-friendly is crucial since a significant portion of visitors use mobile devices.
  3. Having an effective email newsletter and not focusing excessively on website appearance can make a significant impact on reaching and engaging with potential customers.

Optimising costs to enhancing UX - it is all engineering

system bashing • 117 implied HN points • 18 Jul 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. In a tech company, engineering involves balancing cloud costs and user interface to optimize costs and enhance user experience.
  2. Reducing costs significantly is crucial for a company's profitability regardless of other measures like discounts or marketing strategies.
  3. Engineering decisions impact user experience constraints and cloud costs, requiring a balance between the two for system efficiency.

Why Beats What: Prioritize Qualitative User Research Over Quantitative

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 54 implied HN points • 31 Jul 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Focus on qualitative user research to understand why users succeed or fail with a design. This approach offers deeper insights than just looking at numbers.
  2. Testing with just a few users can uncover most usability problems. Don’t wait for large studies; small, quick tests can lead to improvements faster.
  3. Always watch what users actually do instead of relying on what they say. People often don't know why they struggle, so observing their behavior gives you better clues for design changes.

Big impact can be small

Sunday Letters • 39 implied HN points • 24 Mar 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Small actions can have a big impact over time. Just think how turning on a light used to be a big hassle, but now it's super easy.
  2. Making tasks easier leads to wider use. If a product is simple to use, more people will adopt it without thinking twice.
  3. Focus on common problems and make solutions accessible. Like how we turned on lights without much thought, your solutions should be just as easy for everyone to use.
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Come for the culture, stay for the conversation

Substack • 359 implied HN points • 01 May 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. You can now paywall your chat to only allow paying subscribers, which helps keep discussions focused and friendly. This can also be a great incentive for people to subscribe to your content.
  2. The chat features have been upgraded to make it easier to navigate, search for old conversations, and manage notifications. This makes participating in chats smoother and more enjoyable.
  3. Substack chats provide a private space for subscribers to connect and discuss topics they love, creating a sense of community among readers and writers. It's like a special hangout just for fans.

5 learnings from making UX less annoying for 20M+ users

CommandBlogue • 19 implied HN points • 28 May 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Users don't easily forget bad experiences, like annoying pop-ups. Once trust is lost, it's hard to regain, so it's important to be careful with how you present information to them.
  2. Beautiful design attracts users and keeps them engaged. Nowadays, a nice look matters just as much as solving a problem, since many products are similar.
  3. Users prefer having multiple options. If they feel like they don't need help at first, they might still end up needing it later, so providing a way for them to revisit guides is key.

Card Insights

Pine • 19 implied HN points • 18 Jun 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Pine now has cool analytics tools to help you understand your data better. You can break down and show your information in different ways.
  2. They've made some neat improvements, like showing summary insights and helping you create better connections between cards. This makes using the app more user-friendly.
  3. You can now open links in new tabs easily and get notifications for actions you take. These small updates improve the overall experience when using the app.

What is a Founding Engineer?

Jake [Building in NYC] • 59 implied HN points • 25 Jan 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Founding engineers have to work really fast. They need to handle problems quickly and keep feedback flowing between users and the business.
  2. Empathy is key for founding engineers. They should think about how users will respond to their work and make it as easy and enjoyable as possible.
  3. A founding engineer always seeks the truth. They are curious and unafraid to ask questions to understand problems better and find effective solutions.

RIP Skype

The PhilaVerse • 123 implied HN points • 28 Feb 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Microsoft is shutting down Skype on May 5, 2025, after more than two decades of service. They are focusing on Teams now for communication.
  2. Users have 10 weeks to move their data from Skype to Teams or export their information. After that, user data will be kept until the end of 2025 before it is deleted.
  3. Skype had a big drop in users, going from 300 million at its peak to only 36 million daily users by 2023, which is why Microsoft made this decision.

Discussing the present and future of visualization with Jon Schwabish

Alberto Cairo's The Art of Insight • 39 implied HN points • 15 Mar 24
🪑 Design User Experience
  1. Visualization is changing fast, and it's important to keep up with new ideas and methods. This evolution makes it exciting to learn and grow in the field.
  2. There isn't a main online place where designers can share their work and chat about it yet. Having a common space could help everyone connect and improve together.
  3. The approach to design should focus on flexibility rather than strict rules. This mindset can benefit not just design work but also how we teach others about it.

The rebirth of Xiaohongshu

Tech Buzz China Insider • 159 implied HN points • 17 Feb 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Xiaohongshu has significantly changed its user profile and doubled its monthly active users since mid-2020.
  2. The platform's monetization strategy has shifted, focusing on new advertising formats and easier ways for content creators to monetize.
  3. Balancing commercialization and user experience remains a key challenge for Xiaohongshu.

Acceleration With Consequences

Kathy PM • 7 implied HN points • 03 Jan 26
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. AI is shifting from one-off features to ongoing relationships, so tools will be judged by how they behave and fit into users' lives over weeks, not just by single outputs.
  2. Agency and control matter more than raw intelligence; the hardest design choices are about when an AI should act, when it should stay quiet, and who gets to decide.
  3. Working code alone won’t win — teams need understandable, maintainable systems and clear mental models, because loss of trust and confusing handoffs will drive people away faster than bugs.

2025 in AI Video (Featuring My Top 10)

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 11 implied HN points • 11 Dec 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. AI video technology made big leaps—better avatars, movement, and native audio—but it still struggles with longer, coherent storytelling because clips are short and audio, voice, and motion aren’t yet consistently coordinated.
  2. AI is reshaping creative work and UX by automating many UI tasks and enabling highly personalized content, which pushes designers toward higher-level roles like orchestrating experiences and guiding AI outputs.
  3. Creators need to adapt by focusing on real engagement metrics (like retention, not just clicks), ensuring character and audio consistency, and building human skills such as judgment and persuasion to work effectively with AI.

Let me use my local LMs on Meta Ray-Bans

Democratizing Automation • 134 implied HN points • 15 Jan 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. New AI devices like Meta Ray-Bans are becoming popular, changing our expectations for technology. They make tasks easier and more fun, but they need to improve to stay relevant.
  2. Local language models are important for privacy and speed. They should be used for specific, efficient tasks rather than trying to be general-purpose models.
  3. Creating an open platform where developers can integrate their own AI models would enhance innovation and make devices like Ray-Bans more useful. Allowing customization could lead to a more exciting future for technology.

Die Mokassins eines anderen

Squirrel Squadron Substack • 3 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. The repair notification said the device was restored but also warned the keyboard and trackpad might not work and the display could turn off, which is contradictory.
  2. The technician explained those odd comments were automatically generated and admitted they don't use the system, so they never noticed the misleading wording.
  3. When technicians don't validate automated messages, customers get confused and the business risks lost trust and revenue.

#1 - How to make our game colors accessible to everyone

A Good Interface • 99 implied HN points • 27 Jul 23
🎨 Art & Illustration User Experience
  1. Consider color blindness when designing games - 8% of boys and 1% of girls are affected by some form of color vision disorder.
  2. Check the contrast between text and background colors to ensure readability and understandability of game content.
  3. Accessibility in game design goes beyond color - include other visual elements and gather user feedback to enhance user experience.

Top 10 UI Annoyances

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 48 implied HN points • 24 Jul 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Usability annoyances can make users leave a website, hurting businesses. When users face too many issues, they want to quit, which can lead to lost sales.
  2. Common problems like pop-ups and auto-playing videos frustrate users. These distractions can spoil their experience and make them less likely to return.
  3. Design matters! Poor choices, like tiny buttons or hidden menus, can make it hard for users to navigate. Simple, clear designs improve user satisfaction and keep them engaged.

Report: Virtual & Augmented Reality Test Drive

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 153 implied HN points • 24 Nov 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. The Apple VisionPro has some cool uses like immersive video and creating a personal space during flights. However, it's not worth the high price for most people.
  2. Facebook's new AR glasses are just a prototype and not available for sale yet. This means they aren’t really ahead of Apple, which could quickly release a practical product when ready.
  3. Users want more efficient apps and features for AR experiences, especially those that work better than iPad apps. There's potential for amazing virtual experiences, but the technology isn't fully there yet.

The Full Moon Podcast

New World Same Humans • 8 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🪑 Design User Experience
  1. A new podcast called Full Moon has launched as a research service exploring the intersection of technology, business, and creativity.
  2. The first episode focuses on design — saying it’s a crucial moment, that we’re all designers now, and drawing lessons from early digital days to help design in the age of AI.
  3. Listeners are invited to watch and sign up, with paid members getting the next essay on the January full moon, hinting at a regular, member-focused release rhythm.

BabyTime: A Video Calling App for Babies

offscript • 104 implied HN points • 18 Feb 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. The app is designed for babies to call family members using photos, making it easy for them to connect without needing to read.
  2. A friend's three-year-old enjoys using the app so much that he started prank calling family, showing how kids can adapt to tech.
  3. Building the app was a fun project that took just one day, and it encourages others to create simple apps for their own families.

Choosing the right UX metrics - Part 2

UX Psychology • 158 implied HN points • 03 Oct 22
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Identifying clear goals is crucial in choosing the right UX metrics, involving team and stakeholders can help define meaningful and actionable metrics.
  2. Mapping goals to signals helps track progress towards goals; gathering user feedback and reviews can be essential signals to measure UX success.
  3. Refining signals into specific metrics is the final step, where data scientists can assist in ensuring metrics are measured accurately; focus on key metrics and avoid adding unnecessary data.

Toasts and Theming

Pine • 19 implied HN points • 23 May 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Pine now gives you fun little toast messages when you keep a daily streak or reach card milestones. This helps give positive encouragement while you work.
  2. You can now customize the appearance of each deck with different themes and styles. This makes it visually unique and easier to switch between decks.
  3. Many improvements have been made to the user experience to make using Pine more enjoyable overall. This should enhance how you create and review your cards.

Doomchatting

Squirrel Squadron Substack • 3 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Pleasure-focused tech and endless entertainment can lull people into passivity and distraction, acting as a subtle form of control.
  2. Modern AIs and social platforms are engineered to be sycophantic and attention-grabbing, which makes them persuasive, habit-forming, and prone to creating echo chambers and fake interactions.
  3. You can push back by using AI deliberately: keep chats short and factual, tweak system prompts to discourage obsequiousness, favor calm non-chat tools, and stay alert to dark patterns that steal your attention.

About Data User Experience

timo's substack • 78 implied HN points • 28 Sep 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Agile approach works for quick insights but can fail for user experience
  2. Data user experience includes utility, usability, findability, credibility, desirability, and accessibility
  3. Improving data user experience involves naming conventions, SQL style guides, ownership clarity, metadata, architecture, data consistency, and regular user feedback

Idea in Smartphones

Mule’s Musings • 141 implied HN points • 22 Oct 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Smartphones are evolving, and it might be time to consider what that means for us. We need to think about how these changes affect our daily lives.
  2. Many features in smartphones are becoming more advanced, which can change how we communicate and connect with others. It's worth paying attention to these developments.
  3. With the rapid growth of smartphone technology, we should reflect on our usage and whether it aligns with our values and needs. It's important to think critically about our relationship with these devices.

Brass Tacks

davidj.substack • 47 implied HN points • 14 Jun 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Using a split ortholinear keyboard can really help with wrist and finger positioning while typing. This might reduce discomfort or issues like repetitive strain injuries.
  2. Switching to AI tools like LLMs can sometimes be faster and more energy-efficient than traditional web searches. This is surprising since many people assume web searches are the quickest.
  3. In the future, AI could streamline our search for information by reducing the number of web searches needed. Instead of multiple searches, we might get answers in a single go using AI systems.

#9 - Creating an intuitive in-game menu

A Good Interface • 59 implied HN points • 16 Nov 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Understanding player expectations is crucial for designing intuitive in-game menus. Players have certain expectations for content and structure, deviating from which can lead to frustration.
  2. Menu navigation and flow are essential in creating a user-friendly experience. Design clear paths, group similar items, and prioritize important actions for quick and easy navigation.
  3. Consistency in iconography, terminology, and design elements, as well as testing with real players, feedback, and iteration, are key to crafting a well-crafted in-game menu that enhances the player experience.

Good brittle

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 99 implied HN points • 28 Jun 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Situated software is made for specific needs in small groups. It may lack polish but works well for those it helps.
  2. Good brittleness means being tailored to a specific situation and easily adapting when things change. This makes systems and products more responsive.
  3. We should focus on building things that are both suited to situations and able to change easily, rather than just aiming for large, flawless systems.

UX Roundup: Creativity for Old Users | Conflicting AI Goals | Automated Social Campaigns | Digital Storytelling | Valuable Music

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 9 implied HN points • 24 Nov 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. AI is helpful for older users, making it easier for them to stay creative and productive in their jobs for longer. This means they can work effectively even in their later years.
  2. Google's new AI tool, Pomelli, can automatically create social media campaigns for businesses, making it easier for small companies to market themselves. This shows how AI can support marketing efforts.
  3. AI tools like Suno for music and Gamma for slide creation are gaining significant value and popularity, empowering everyday people to create without needing extensive technical skills.

Robot Nags

David Friedman’s Substack • 242 implied HN points • 10 Feb 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Technology like smart watches and apps can provide constant reminders or notifications, sometimes without the option to stop them.
  2. Encouraging reading habits through rewards or forced reading can have unintended consequences, such as making reading seem like a chore to children.
  3. Various instances of 'robot nags' exist in everyday technology, aimed at influencing behavior or decision-making, sometimes intrusively.

The Region-Beta Paradox and its Impact on Product and Experimentation Thinking

CAUSL Effect • 119 implied HN points • 12 Apr 23
💼 Business User Experience
  1. The Region-Beta Paradox shows that people often tolerate mild discomfort until they reach a more intense state, which can lead to faster recovery. In simple terms, we might ignore small problems until they become serious.
  2. This idea can change how product teams think about improving customer experiences. Instead of aiming for perfect satisfaction, it might be okay to allow for some mild frustration, as it can be a signal for customers to take action.
  3. Not all products need to be perfect to be successful. Sometimes, a product that fits well in the market is more important than one that delivers an ideal experience but lacks user interest.

Choosing the right UX metrics - Part 1

UX Psychology • 119 implied HN points • 20 Sep 22
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. UX metrics are vital for making evidence-based UX decisions instead of relying on opinions and beliefs.
  2. Using a combination of attitudinal and behavioral metrics can provide a comprehensive understanding of user experience.
  3. The HEART framework - Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success - offers a structured way to select and track UX metrics for data-driven decision-making.

Shreyas Doshi on Product Thinking

Practical Product Discovery • 58 implied HN points • 23 Mar 23
💼 Business User Experience
  1. Product thinking involves understanding motivations and conceiving solutions based on effects you want to create.
  2. Avoid relying solely on project thinking, which focuses on plans and resources rather than user needs and creativity.
  3. To learn product thinking, prioritize real goals over deliverables, understand user needs, generate options, simulate outcomes, and study examples in the wild.

Siri + ChatGPT + Shortcuts

aidaily • 58 implied HN points • 12 Jun 23
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Siri, ChatGPT, and Shortcuts team up on iPad for enhanced AI experience.
  2. AI tools like ChatGPT can significantly boost productivity and business success.
  3. Beware of AI deepfakes like realistic fake nudes causing online harm.

Required Fields in Forms: Best Design Practices

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 34 implied HN points • 26 Jun 25
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Only ask for information that is truly needed on forms. Too many required fields can frustrate users and lead them to abandon the form.
  2. Make it clear which fields are necessary by using simple markers. An asterisk can show required fields, but if most fields are required, it's better to say that upfront.
  3. Understanding user trust is key. If people feel their privacy is at risk, they are less likely to complete the form, so always explain why you need certain information.

Ten principles of good design

A Bit Gamey • 33 implied HN points • 22 Jun 25
🪑 Design User Experience
  1. Good design should be simple and focus on what's really important. Less is more when it comes to creating functional products.
  2. A product must be useful, attractive, and easy to understand. If a product fails to meet these needs, it won't be successful.
  3. Sustainable design is vital, as it helps protect the environment and creates lasting products that avoid trends and fads.

A UXer's guide to neurodiversity

UX Psychology • 158 implied HN points • 13 May 22
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. Neurodiversity encompasses a wide range of neurological variations in the human population, emphasizing the positive aspects and uniqueness of different thinking styles and cognitive functions.
  2. When designing for neurodiversity, consider factors like font choice, error prevention, clear copywriting, sensory issues, and consistency in design to create inclusive user experiences.
  3. In the workplace, it's important to foster understanding and flexibility to support neurodiverse individuals, from adjusting hiring practices to creating accommodating work environments and providing education and resources.

Duplicating Published Decks

Pine • 19 implied HN points • 11 Apr 24
🕹 Technology User Experience
  1. You can now duplicate published decks in your own Pine workspace. This makes it easier to use existing materials and adapt them for your needs.
  2. When duplicating, you can choose how to manage existing decks, like merging new cards or replacing them completely. This gives you control over your content updates.
  3. There are other improvements, like faster loading times for your workspace and better thumbnail generation for sharing on social media. These updates make the platform more user-friendly.