Nielsen Norman Group

Here’s a little secret: NN/G is crawling with word nerds. (And all other types of nerds, too.) And we love hearing from our fellow word nerds in our live online courses. Here are some highlights, and our wordiest, nerdiest responses. Want to ask your question to a resident NN/G word nerd? Join us in Writing Compelling Digital Copy → https://bit.ly/4eIZ5zd Maybe you want to improve your microcopy skills → https://bit.ly/4oLj6d6 Or see if we already answered your question → https://bit.ly/3Srma2c #UXWriting #Copywriting #UX #UXCourses #Microcopy #NNGroup

A list of things that belong on shelves: Souvenirs, books, family photos, things you don’t want your dog getting to. Things that don’t belong on shelves: Research recommendations you put your heart and soul into. Let’s start making a change and getting your work on the roadmap. Follow these three steps and start your journey to better results for your findings. Ready for more? Read the full article for all 11 tips. Link in the caption 👇 #UXResearch #Product #Stakeholders #UX #UXLeadership

No, I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a research participant who can’t get no love from NN/G. And we don’t want these three research participants either. 3 types you'll want to screen out: → Poor-fit candidates (right title, wrong experience) → Professional testers (here for the payout) → Bad actors (lying, or letting AI answer for them) Want more? Check out the full article → https://bit.ly/3QJ8bEb Or dive deeper in our course → https://bit.ly/4oP2PnD #UXResearch #UserResearch #UX #ResearchOps #UXDesign

Everyone wants to be a consultant. Be your own boss. Set your own hours. But the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to build a practice? Much less romantic. Before you go solo, it helps to separate the fantasy from the reality. We're busting 3 of the biggest myths about consulting — the ones that catch even seasoned practitioners off guard. Want to start your practice? Join Sharbani Dhar GAICD as she walks you through how to go from 0 to a sustainable practice → https://bit.ly/3SqFOeF #UXConsulting #UX #Consulting #UXCareers #DesignCareers

You and a colleague both say you do “AI design." Odds are you might both mean completely different things. The term “AI Design” has become a catch-all for what are four genuinely different practices: → Designing with AI (the Driver): using AI tools in your own workflow to move faster and more efficiently → Designing AI products (the Manufacturer): building the interface that delivers AI capabilities to your users → Designing for AI agents (the Civil Engineer): creating content or interactions or infrastructure that AI systems — not humans — will navigate → Designing the AI (the Mechanic): defining how a model behaves, responds, and makes decisions These paths require different skills. They involve different collaborators. They create different career opportunities. Honestly, right now, most people are simply just driving the car, and that is okay! But the designers who will have the most leverage in the next few years aren't necessarily the ones who use AI the most, but the ones who understand the type of AI design work they're doing and deliberately build their skills around it. NN/G's AI courses are designed to help you do exactly that → https://bit.ly/4vvA6qs Or read Sarah Gibbons’s full article, inspired by Laura Costantino here → https://bit.ly/3SFCqfU #AI #UXDesign #AIDesign #UX #NNGroup

UX tip of the day: Don't just tell users what went wrong. Tell them what to do next or why the error happened. "Invalid input." → Why was it invalid? "Request failed." → Did a server error occur, or was it something I can fix? Things go wrong. It happens. So, why not make it a little bit easier on everyone to fix mistakes? For example: Instead of: Error 404 Try: Error 404 Page Not Found. Check to see if your link is correct, or try another page. Small changes can bring a measurable impact on task completion and user trust. Get more error message guidelines from us at https://bit.ly/4oIVDcJ Want to go deeper on writing microcopy that works? Explore our Informative Microcopy course → https://bit.ly/4oJ50cb #UXWriting #ContentDesign #UXDesign #Microcopy #NNGroup

Sick of AI courses that promise learning but amount to a ChatGPT walkthrough? Yeah, us too. There's a difference between knowing how to prompt an AI tool and knowing how to build AI into your practice (or into the products your users depend on). And right now, most training conflates the two… 😬 yikes. Instead of just being another generic prompt engineering tutorial on YouTube, we’ve built five AI courses around the skills we’re seeing UX practitioners and product designers are actually being asked to use: → Integrate AI without sacrificing research integrity → Generate, evaluate, and refine AI-assisted design outputs → Actually building AI features that users understand and actually trust → Building a strategy to move your organization from AI hype to responsible adoption → Delivering strong results even under resource constraints And the cool thing… take all 5 and aim to earn your NN/G UX Certification! 🔥 Explore the full lineup → https://bit.ly/4xHHWPl #AI #UXDesign #UXCertification #AIDesign #NNGroup

I wrote something for Nielsen-Norman Group! Take a look :) https://lnkd.in/gZdrPsXS Thanks Laura Klein for the inspiration to write!

Do you actually have influence over what gets built? Or are you the last to know and the first to execute? Having real design autonomy means being involved in product direction, not just surface-level UI decisions. And the designers who have it aren't just senior. They're better informed. Context is key after all, and data matters! Designers who lack a say tend to lack context. They're not in the loop on what other teams are building, what metrics leadership cares about, or what's being decided in rooms they're not invited to. Don’t just get stuck being the executor. Get out of the dark by → Reaching out to teams you don't usually interact with → Building relationships before you need anything from them → Creating or joining spaces where cross-team information flows → Synthesizing what you're learning and sharing it back The goal isn't just to stay informed, but to become the person who connects the dots and be exactly the kind of value stakeholders notice. Read more about building an information pipeline as a designer: https://bit.ly/43R2FCx Want to show stakeholders that your work is driving results? Our Demonstrating UX Value course can help → https://bit.ly/3Qzv5xW #UXDesign #DesignLeadership #UXStrategy #ProductDesign #NNGroup

Not every artifact you make needs to be seen by anyone. Some things are just for you. Made to get ideas out of your head, figure out if they're any good, and then be thrown away. Laura Klein calls these design disposables and argues they're one of the most underrated parts of a strong design process. The distinction between a disposable and a deliverable isn't about quality or artifact type. It's about intention. For example, a prototype can be a disposable (built to ask a question) or a deliverable (for stakeholders to review). Where this gets tricky is that AI tools can now generate quick and highly polished first-pass artifacts in seconds. But faster to make doesn't automatically mean easier to let go of, or that it's any good at all. Plus, when you outsource the making, you sometimes miss the learning. Go deeper with Laura in making better deliverables (or when not to) in her latest self-paced course → https://bit.ly/3SySEHG Or read Laura's full article as she makes the case for disposables → The Case for Design Disposables (https://bit.ly/4eD2Kig #UXDesign #DesignProcess #UXThinking #ProductDesign #DesignLeadership