The hottest User Research Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

TBM 410: Dancing With Problems

The Beautiful Mess • 912 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
💼 Business User Research
  1. Vague problem statements like “make the app easier” don’t help — be specific about what’s broken, why it matters, and what outcomes you want so you can diagnose and measure impact.
  2. Look at problems from multiple levels — user behavior, surrounding context, incentives, and long‑term strategy — and move between those views to test assumptions and find the real crux.
  3. Don’t jump to simple fixes; investigate trade‑offs, who relies on the data, and how changes shift work downstream, and create shared understanding so the team can navigate complexity together.

Don’t Design for Average Users

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 48 implied HN points • 19 Mar 26
🪑 Design User Research
  1. The arithmetic average lies in digital products because usage is heavily skewed: a small P95/P99 group often creates most of the value while the median user is usually a low-contribution "tourist."
  2. You must design two experiences: a ruthlessly simple, friction-free on‑ramp for P50 tourists, and deep, uncapped, high‑performance tools (APIs, macros, shortcuts) for P95 whales, revealed via progressive disclosure.
  3. Track the full distribution (P25/P50/P75/P95/P99) and the P95/P50 ratio to guide pricing, retention, and roadmap choices, and focus resources on protecting and growing the high-value tail.

How to Run a UX Design Critique

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 75 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🪑 Design User Research
  1. Run critiques as a structured, time-boxed process: define roles, set scope and a facilitator, share context at least 24 hours before, and use silent feedback plus a note-taker to keep the meeting focused and psychologically safe.
  2. Make feedback problem-focused and evidence-based. Avoid taste-based comments, solutionizing, and bikeshedding; use formats like “I like / I wish / What if” and synthesize comments with affinity mapping to create clear issues to act on.
  3. Close the loop with prioritization, documentation, and tooling. Score issues with Impact/Effort or RICE, publish action items within 24 hours, and use AI and collaboration tools to help prep, synthesize async feedback, and learn from past crits.

Gmail: Designed to be joyfully simple

Elizabeth Laraki • 199 implied HN points • 03 Sep 24
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Gmail was built to be fast and user-friendly. The designers wanted everyone to enjoy using email instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.
  2. Key features like conversation threading changed how we view email. Instead of treating each email as a separate message, Gmail groups related messages together for easier tracking.
  3. Designing for joy means creating a simple and pleasant user experience. The goal was to make Gmail so easy to use that it felt natural and enjoyable for everyone.

TBM 396: So You Want To Define “The Problem”?

The Beautiful Mess • 489 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
💼 Business User Research
  1. Don't hunt for a single, perfect problem statement. Use multiple layers to see the customer's story, other actors' views, and the wider system shaping behavior.
  2. Listen to how customers describe the issue and collect perspectives from everyone involved, while treating history and past attempts as useful data.
  3. Turn the integrated understanding into small, testable interventions your product can realistically influence, and be clear about what capabilities or constraints will expand or limit your impact.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

Why chasing twitter's approval doesn't work

Load-bearing Tomato • 11 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🪑 Design User Research
  1. Social media opinions are skewed by algorithms and loud minorities, so what trends on platforms often isn't representative of your real player base.
  2. People misremember and tell stories about themselves, and many commenters lack the expertise to propose workable fixes. So direct suggestions are often wrong, and you should rely on behavior data and experiments instead.
  3. Media and creators amplify noisy or inflammatory takes into supposed truths, so treat player comments as data not gospel and always validate them with in-game metrics and careful testing.

User Research Guide For Founders, Part 1: Getting Started

Elizabeth Laraki • 179 implied HN points • 25 Apr 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. Set clear and specific research goals to know exactly what you want to learn from users.
  2. Choose the right research method, like interviews or usability studies, based on whether you need feedback on a concept or an existing product.
  3. Turn your research goals into specific questions that are easy for people to answer, making it easier to gather useful information.

Enhancing Employee Experience through UX

UX Psychology • 238 implied HN points • 02 Feb 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. It is crucial to integrate UX principles into the employee experience to enhance engagement and productivity in the workplace.
  2. By applying UX methodologies like user research, iterative design, and usability testing, organizations can create environments that prioritize employee needs and well-being.
  3. UX professionals can play key roles in optimizing the employee experience by leading research, advising on best practices, and educating workplace teams on UX skills and mindsets.

User Research Guide For Founders, Part 3: Run Sessions + Identify Insights

Elizabeth Laraki • 79 implied HN points • 17 May 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. When running user research sessions, make sure to plan the logistics and keep the session length manageable. It's important to stick to your script while encouraging participants to share their thoughts during the session.
  2. After completing the sessions, document the findings by organizing feedback into themes. This will help you identify common issues and insights that can improve your product.
  3. Share the insights in a clear and concise format, highlighting major findings and prioritizing issues that need attention. This helps ensure everyone on your team understands the feedback and can work together on solutions.

The Big Tough UX-AI Quiz

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 21 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
🪑 Design User Research
  1. UX must change for AI: designers need patterns for long-running "Slow AI" work (resumption summaries, conceptual breadcrumbs, tiered notifications, salvage value) and must embrace generative, disposable UIs that are created on-the-fly for immediate user intent.
  2. Human roles and skills are shifting from pure craft to higher-level capacities: agency, judgment, and persuasion become key, with new hybrid roles like product engineers and forward-deployed engineers who integrate, oversee, and operationalize AI.
  3. Measurement and economics are in flux: AI introduces extra variance in A/B tests, creates a "measurement gap" for traditional metrics, and while AI is often cheaper and improving fast, teams must manage hallucinations, noisy evaluation, and calibrate human trust and vigilance.

2025 Year in Review: Themes, Trends, Status, Top 10 Articles

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 29 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🪑 Design User Research
  1. AI has become the interface. Design now focuses less on pixels and more on defining goals, constraints, guardrails, and when humans should intervene.
  2. Agency is the new professional currency. Careers shift from titles and craft to the ability to frame problems, set intent, and steer AI systems under uncertainty.
  3. Research, creativity, and distribution are refashioned by AI. User research runs at machine speed, visual creation is democratized, and UX must handle time, prompt literacy, and AI‑mediated discovery.

User Research Guide For Founders, Part 2: Plan your Research

Elizabeth Laraki • 59 implied HN points • 06 May 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. Identify who you want to talk to for your research. Focus on people who can actually help answer your questions.
  2. Recruit participants carefully by using screening forms to find the right fit. Make sure your questions are clear and helpful.
  3. Create a detailed research plan and script to guide your sessions. This will help make your research more effective and insightful.

The Effect of Culture in UX

UX Psychology • 258 implied HN points • 12 May 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Understanding cultural differences is crucial in UX design to cater to diverse user needs globally.
  2. Cultural dimensions like individualism-collectivism, high-vs-low context communication, and power distance can significantly impact user behavior and preferences.
  3. Incorporating cultural sensitivity in design through research, inclusive elements, and collaboration with local experts can enhance user experience for a diverse global audience.

UX Roundup: How People Use AI | AI Does User Research | Founding Designers | Prompt Engineering | AI Agent Use Cases | Electricity Fuels AI | GPT 5.2 Beats Humans

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 23 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Workers are already using AI a lot — often secretly — so product design must support both automation and collaboration, teach prompting, and give users control (especially for creative workflows that need canvas-style UIs and curator tools).
  2. AI can run and analyze large-scale interviews, turning qualitative insights into quantifiable themes and making researchers into orchestrators, but agent behavior and user needs change over time so longitudinal usability studies are essential.
  3. Simple persona prompts don’t improve factual accuracy, yet models and costs are improving rapidly — cutting task costs and enabling AI to outperform experts on many half-day tasks — so designs and infrastructure (including power capacity) must evolve quickly.

Creating Inclusive AI: A Strengths-Based Approach to Accessible Design

UX Psychology • 138 implied HN points • 10 Nov 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Designing AI systems using a strengths-based approach can empower users across a wide array of abilities, rather than highlighting deficits.
  2. Key frameworks like Universal Design, Ability-Based Design, and Design for User Empowerment help create more accessible and empowering intelligent systems.
  3. Using qualitative research methods like co-design and long-term engagement can provide deeper insights into diverse user experiences, enhancing the design process.

Nostalgia in UX Design

UX Psychology • 158 implied HN points • 11 Aug 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Nostalgia has evolved from being seen as a medical ailment to a cultural touchstone, becoming more relevant today in marketing and design.
  2. Nostalgia offers psychological comfort during distressing times, increasing well-being, optimism, and a sense of meaning in life.
  3. When incorporating nostalgia into UX design, it's essential to understand the audience, innovate while evoking the past, ensure coherence, and avoid the potential pitfalls of manipulation and inhibiting innovation.

Lost in Navigation: Overcoming the Paradox of Choice in UX Design

UX Psychology • 99 implied HN points • 01 Sep 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Providing more choices in user interfaces does not always lead to better decisions due to the paradox of choice - too many options can lead to decision overload and poorer choices.
  2. Choice paralysis in UX occurs when users are overwhelmed with options, leading to inaction or abandonment of tasks - simplifying navigation options can help prevent this.
  3. Hick's Law states that decision time increases with the number of choices available, emphasizing the importance of streamlining navigation design to reduce cognitive effort and aid decision-making for users.

Why do people hate redesigns?

UX Psychology • 178 implied HN points • 28 Oct 21
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Users often hate redesigns due to familiarity bias, where they prefer the familiar even if the change is beneficial, and the endowment effect which makes them value what they already have more.
  2. Psychology plays a significant role in user reactions to redesigns, as habits are hard to change, leading to user dissatisfaction with altered interfaces.
  3. To improve user experience with redesigns, allowing opt-ins for changes can give users control, conducting thorough user research helps address pain-points, and making small, incremental changes can ease user adaptation.

What 1,250 Workers Really Think About AI (And Why You’re Probably Lying to Yourself)

The Product Channel By Sid Saladi • 3 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. There’s a big perception gap: people say AI mostly augments them, but actual behavior shows heavy automation, so you must measure real usage not just ask users.
  2. Social stigma makes many professionals hide their AI use, which skews adoption metrics and creates workplace theater, so design for disclosure comfort and respect identity.
  3. Different professions treat AI differently — creatives want control and pride, scientists want trustworthy, explainable partners, and general workers want to preserve identity — so segment by professional identity and build transparency and reliability features.

Breaking analysis paralysis: a guide to using data in product management

Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers • 33 implied HN points • 27 Nov 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. Always start with a clear hypothesis when analyzing data. This helps focus your research and prevents getting lost in too much information.
  2. Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data for a better understanding. This means looking at both numbers and user feedback to get the full picture.
  3. Document your analysis process carefully. This helps others understand your findings and allows for better collaboration in the future.

5 ways to empathize with users and involve your team

Step-by-step Product • 19 implied HN points • 05 Mar 23
💼 Business User Research
  1. Observing users regularly and involving your team is crucial for building successful products.
  2. Maintaining continuity in the discovery process by having weekly touchpoints with customers helps generate insights.
  3. Creating a stakeholders repository and using tools like empathy maps and user scenarios can enhance team collaboration and communication.

Can you build delighters?

Seth’s Substack • 19 implied HN points • 08 Mar 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Delightful software is not just useful, but loved by passionate fans.
  2. Delighters in software can be intentional features that bring convenience or surprise.
  3. Achieving higher-order delight in software is like appreciating a work of art, requiring dedication and craftsmanship.

UX Roundup: Jakob Keynote Video | University Courses | 8 Uses of AI for UX Design | Museum Usability

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 32 implied HN points • 18 Nov 24
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. AI is becoming a major force in UX design, helping teams work faster and more efficiently. It's taking over mundane tasks, allowing designers to focus on more important work.
  2. Educational programs are starting to include AI in their UX courses, preparing future designers for the changing landscape of the industry. This is a positive step for those looking to enter the field.
  3. Good usability in places like museums can greatly improve visitor experience. Clear signage and easy navigation are key factors in making sure everyone enjoys their visit.

UX Roundup: AI-UX One-Day Conference | AI Format Remixing | UXR Prompt Cheatsheet | Research Report Renaissance | Worst UI Ever | Flexible Displays | Scaling Law for Physical AI | Podcast | Le Chat

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 25 implied HN points • 25 Nov 24
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. There is an online conference on December 4 that focuses on using AI in UX design. It's a great chance to learn about best practices and improve your skills.
  2. AI can help repurpose content into different formats, like turning articles into videos or podcasts. This makes sharing ideas easier and more engaging.
  3. Keeping a research repository is important because AI can quickly pull insights from past studies to answer new questions. This saves time and improves the impact of user research.

Creating personas with secondary data

UX Psychology • 59 implied HN points • 05 Jan 22
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Personas are crucial in design, representing target users based on research. They help focus design efforts, improve team communication, make assumptions explicit, and bring empathy to the process.
  2. Secondary data can be utilized to create personas, saving time and costs. Social media, case studies, and internal research are potential sources.
  3. Creating multiple personas ensures a more accurate representation of the target group. It's essential to limit personas to 3-4 major ones, each representing a segment of the target users.

UX Roundup: OpenAI Product Roadmap | Parallel and Iterative AI Use | Virtual Boyfriends | Jakob in SF | Dropdown Menus | Early GUI | AI Urgency | Perplexity Deep Research

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 11 implied HN points • 17 Feb 25
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. Grok 3 is about to launch and promises to be a smarter AI. It’s important to compare it with future models like GPT-5 to see how much better they become.
  2. OpenAI has simplified their product naming, making it easier to understand what each version offers. GPT-5 will also come with better features for users who pay for a subscription.
  3. The way we use AI in creative work can really boost quality. Using multiple models and refining ideas helps combine the best outcomes, making it a collaborative tool not just a replacement.

Embrace AI’s Uncertainty in UX

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 29 implied HN points • 06 Mar 24
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. In the age of AI, the design landscape is changing as we embrace the uncertainty of probabilistic systems, leading to a redefinition of traditional design roles and processes.
  2. Using AI in user research introduces new challenges, such as increased variability and a shift towards more qualitative studies over quantitative ones.
  3. Designing for AI means relinquishing control over the final user interface and embracing a design approach focused on creating rules and heuristics for AI-generated content.

Unlocking simplicity: Customer empathy as a (not-so-secret) weapon

amivora • 5 implied HN points • 05 Feb 25
💼 Business User Research
  1. Spending time with customers is really important for understanding what to simplify in your product. It might not seem helpful right away, but it leads to better decisions in the long run.
  2. Using your own product to identify issues can teach you a lot. Observing how customers interact with it often reveals what's working and what's frustrating for them.
  3. Deep emotional responses from customers indicate what matters most to them. Getting those insights helps shape what you should focus on and improve in your offerings.

Should User Interviews be Influenced by the Founder's Point of View on the Problem?

Build Startup In Public • 4 HN points • 16 Jul 24
💼 Business User Research
  1. When talking to users, keep an open mind and avoid pushing your own ideas. It's important to listen and discover unexpected insights from their experiences.
  2. Don't just talk to the end users; include stakeholders and decision makers too. Their perspectives can reveal hidden challenges and needs that could affect your product's success.
  3. Understand the context where your users operate. Observing them in their natural environment can help you learn about their behaviors and needs, leading to better product design.

#13 Empathy, billiard balls and experts

Design Lobster • 19 implied HN points • 23 Apr 20
🪑 Design User Research
  1. Empathy should drive design decisions, going to great lengths to understand users' lives can lead to innovative solutions.
  2. When changing materials in design, maintaining the same satisfying feel is crucial for user experience success.
  3. Designers must recognize that users are experts in their problems, not the solutions, and aim to create solutions users didn't even realize they wanted.

10/36 - User Research 101: Navigating the Discovery Process

Product Mindset's Newsletter • 9 implied HN points • 19 Mar 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. User research helps understand user behaviors and needs through various methodologies to improve product usability.
  2. Benefits of user research include cost reduction, increased user satisfaction, and gaining a competitive advantage.
  3. User research methods include qualitative and quantitative approaches, attitudinal and behavioral studies, and a mix for a comprehensive view.

Are you the chosen one? 💻[HTC #67]

Hold the code • 2 implied HN points • 17 Oct 23
🕹 Technology User Research
  1. The concept of the 10x developer remains intriguing but unproven in software engineering.
  2. Media disinformation enhanced by AI tools is a significant threat to the 2024 US elections.
  3. Utilizing AI in user research presents ethical considerations like transparency, privacy, and bias awareness.

Worm's Eye View

Practical Product Discovery • 0 implied HN points • 13 Feb 23
💼 Business User Research
  1. Understanding the local perspective is crucial for success in product development.
  2. Building products should involve spending time with users to gain insights and improve outcomes.
  3. Effective products require direct access to users for better understanding and innovation.

Learning to ask better questions when talking to users

Eddie's startup voyage • 0 implied HN points • 22 Apr 22
💼 Business User Research
  1. Asking better questions in user interviews is crucial for uncovering deeper insights and making informed decisions.
  2. Avoid closed and hypothetical questions that lead to yes/no answers or opinions based on unfamiliar situations.
  3. Using discussion guides in user interviews can significantly enhance the quality of insights obtained and improve problem discovery and decision-making processes.