By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Recruiting the right participants is crucial for successful user experience (UX) research. Without the right people, your findings may not reflect real user needs, leading to flawed designs and wasted resources. A well-crafted UX screener template helps you identify and select participants who truly match your target audience. This post explains how to build an effective UX screener template that ensures you recruit ideal participants ev

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Validating information architecture (IA) is crucial to ensure users can navigate a website or app intuitively. One of the most reliable methods for this validation is tree testing. However, without a clear research plan, tree testing can become inefficient and yield unclear results. This post explains how to create a practical tree test research plan template that guides you through IA validation with confidence. Tree structure diagram o

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Creating a clear and practical evaluative research plan is essential for gathering meaningful data and making informed decisions. Whether you are assessing a program, product, or service, a well-structured plan guides your research process and ensures you focus on the right questions. This post breaks down the key components of an evaluative research plan template, offers examples, and shares best practices to help you design your own. D

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Creating a generative research plan can feel overwhelming without a clear roadmap. Yet, this type of research is essential for uncovering user needs, motivations, and behaviors before designing solutions. A well-crafted plan guides your team through the process, ensuring you gather meaningful insights that shape better products or services. This guide breaks down the steps to build a thorough generative research plan that delivers action

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Creating a research plan can feel overwhelming, especially when time is tight. Yet, a clear plan is essential for guiding your study, organizing your thoughts, and setting achievable goals. What if you could draft a solid research plan in just 10 minutes? Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, this is now possible. This post will walk you through how to quickly build an effective research plan using AI tools, saving you time and

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Creating a solid UX research plan is essential for designing products that truly meet user needs. Without a clear plan, research efforts can become scattered, wasting time and resources. This post walks you through how to build an effective UX research plan, with practical steps and a downloadable template to guide your process. A UX research workspace with notes and sketches Why a UX Research Plan Matters A UX research plan acts as a ro

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Research today moves faster than ever, and artificial intelligence plays a key role in helping scholars, scientists, and students manage data, analyze results, and generate insights. Choosing the right AI tools can save time, improve accuracy, and open new possibilities in research. This post highlights some of the best AI tools available in 2025 that are worth using for various research tasks. Researcher working with AI software on lapt

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) research is essential for creating products that truly meet user needs. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) tools have become popular for speeding up data analysis and generating insights. While AI offers clear benefits, relying too heavily on it in UX research can lead to serious pitfalls. This post explores why depending too much on AI can harm the quality of UX research and what researchers should keep in mind

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) research relies on clear, accurate insights to shape products that truly meet user needs. As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become more common in UX research, they offer powerful ways to analyze data and uncover patterns. Yet, AI can also introduce errors that reduce the quality of research findings. Avoiding these mistakes is essential to maintain trust in your UX insights and build better user experiences. This

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) researchers face growing challenges as AI tools become part of their daily workflow. Crafting effective AI prompts can unlock powerful insights, speed up analysis, and improve design decisions. Yet, many UX researchers struggle to write prompts that deliver clear, relevant, and actionable results. Mastering the right AI prompt frameworks can transform how you gather and interpret user data. This post explores 10 esse

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader The rise of artificial intelligence has transformed many fields, including user experience (UX) research. AI tools can analyze large datasets, identify patterns, and even generate user insights faster than ever before. Yet, despite these advances, the future of UX research depends heavily on human skills that AI cannot replicate. Understanding why these skills remain essential helps UX professionals prepare for a future where technology

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) design is evolving rapidly, and one of the biggest questions today is how much of this work will be done by artificial intelligence. Agentic AI, which can act independently to complete tasks, is advancing quickly. Some experts predict that it could replace up to 50% of UX tasks in the near future. This shift will change how designers work and what skills they need. Let’s explore what this means for UX design and how

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) research is essential for creating products that truly meet user needs. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), many UX research tasks are evolving. AI tools can now handle data collection, analysis, and pattern recognition faster than ever. Yet, some parts of UX research still require human insight, empathy, and creativity. This post explores which UX research tasks AI will automate and which ones will remain

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader User experience (UX) research has always been a vital part of designing products that truly meet user needs. As technology advances, the methods and tools used in UX research evolve as well. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to change the way UX researchers gather, analyze, and apply data by 2026 and beyond. This transformation will make research faster, more accurate, and more insightful, ultimately improving how products connect with

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Cognitive walkthroughs offer a powerful way to evaluate how users interact with a product or system. They focus on understanding the user's thought process as they complete tasks, helping designers spot usability problems early. This method is especially useful for improving software interfaces, websites, and other interactive systems where user experience matters. Person conducting a cognitive walkthrough on a digital interface What Is

When designing a product or interface, identifying usability problems early can save time and resources. One effective method to find these issues is heuristic evaluation. This technique involves experts reviewing a product against established usability principles to spot problems that might confuse or frustrate users. Understanding heuristic evaluations helps teams improve user experience before launching or updating a product. Expert conducting heuristic evaluation on a web

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Preference testing plays a crucial role in understanding what people like and why they make certain choices. Whether you are developing a product, designing a website, or creating content, knowing your audience’s preferences helps you make better decisions. This post explores what preference testing is, how it works, and practical ways to apply it effectively. Person choosing between two product samples What Is Preference Testing? Prefer

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Card sorting is a simple yet powerful technique used to organize information in a way that makes sense to users. It helps designers, developers, and researchers understand how people group and label content, which improves website navigation, app menus, and overall user experience. This post explores what card sorting is, how it works, and practical ways to use it effectively. Cards sorted into categories on a wooden table What Is Card S

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Understanding how users navigate complex information is a challenge for many designers and researchers. One effective method to evaluate this is the Tree Test . This technique helps uncover how easily people find information within a website or app’s structure. If you want to improve your site’s navigation or organize content more clearly, a Tree Test offers valuable insights. Diagram showing a website's navigation tree structure What Is

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Cultural probes offer a unique way to explore people's lives, thoughts, and environments. They provide rich, personal insights that traditional research methods often miss. This post explains what cultural probes are, how they work, and why they matter for designers, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding human behavior. A notebook with handwritten notes and sketches from a cultural probe activity What Are Cultural Probes? C