The hottest User Testing Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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The First Sneaky Town Tournament

Human Programming • 77 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
🪑 Design User Testing
  1. A small act of commitment plus a bit of serendipity can unlock big opportunities — joining a makerspace and signing up for certification made the tournament possible.
  2. Ship first, polish later: a last-minute design pivot still produced boards people loved, showing deadlines and sharing work before perfection matter more than waiting for an ideal version.
  3. Practical event design and teaching matter: clear invites, flexible pacing, simple tournament structure, and improving how rules are taught made the event run smoothly and helped seed a local community.

How to Get From Zero to Prototype in 5 Days

CodeLink’s Substack • 58 implied HN points • 25 May 23
🕹 Technology User Testing
  1. Learn how to go from zero to prototype in just five days using an async design sprint.
  2. Key elements of a design sprint team include Facilitator, Timekeeper, Bus Driver, Decider, and Interviewer.
  3. Daily schedule for a design sprint includes warm-up sessions, group collaboration, individual work periods, and sync-up meetings to stay on track.

How many participants do you need for a usability study?

UX Psychology • 79 implied HN points • 02 Aug 22
🕹 Technology User Testing
  1. The number of participants in a usability study should be chosen based on factors like the impact of the study, complexity of the product, target user groups, and study's purpose. A range of 3-20 participants is generally valid, with 5-10 being a sensible baseline.
  2. Increasing the number of participants in a usability study can improve the reliability of findings. For example, using 10 participants can uncover 95% of the problems on average, while 15 participants can identify 97% of the issues.
  3. Choosing the right methodology and preventing facilitator errors are crucial in usability testing, as poor methodology can lead to invalid study results regardless of participant group size. Quality over quantity is key in ensuring effective usability testing.

Card sorting: how many participants do you really need?

UX Psychology • 39 implied HN points • 07 Jun 22
🕹 Technology User Testing
  1. Card sorting is a popular UX research method where participants group labels according to their own criteria, revealing their knowledge structure and helping create user-friendly information architectures.
  2. There are three main types of card sorting: open, closed, and hybrid, each serving different research goals.
  3. Studies suggest that 15-30 participants are usually enough for card sorting studies to provide reliable results, with 15 participants being sufficient for most projects but 20-30 recommended for larger projects.
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