The following user-experience articles published in 2025 were the ones our audience read the most:

  1. Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

    iOS 26’s visual language obscures content instead of letting it take the spotlight. New (but not always better) design patterns replace established conventions.

  2. The UX Reckoning: Prepare for 2025 and Beyond

    In 2025, reevaluate tactics; use AI to deliver user value; and develop deep UX skills, instead of relying on toolkits.

  3. UX Is Dead, Long Live UX

    Businesses must shift their focus from a narrow, product-level view of UX to a holistic one that spans a customer's lifelong experience.

  4. The Return of the UX Generalist

    AI advances make UX generalists valuable, reversing the trend toward specialization. Understanding multiple disciplines is increasingly important.

  5. Redefine Your Design Skills to Prepare for AI

    Designers must embrace 5 principles as our industry shifts with AI.

  6. How AI Is Changing Search Behaviors

    Our study shows that generative AI is reshaping search, but long-standing habits persist. Many users still default to Google, giving Gemini a fighting chance.

  7. Button States: Communicate Interaction

    Minor visual changes help users distinguish between 5 different button states: enabled, disabled, hovered, focused, pressed.

  8. The Hamburger-Menu Icon Today: Is it Recognizable?

    Hamburger menus are a more familiar pattern today than 10 years ago, but the same old best practices for hidden navigation still apply.

  9. Neobrutalism: Definition and Best Practices

    As a UI design style, neobrutalism focuses on raw, unrefined elements like bold colors, simple shapes, and intentionally "unfinished" aesthetics.

  10. How Service Design Will Evolve with AI Agents
    AI will force the transformation of service design by introducing new actors, shifting user dynamics, and redefining success metrics.

Bonus: Top 5 Articles from Last Year

The following articles were published in 2024 but were so popular in 2025 that they would have earned a place in the above list based on this year's readership numbers alone:

  1. Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated “Research”

    Synthetic users are fake users generated by AI. While there may be a few use cases for them, user research needs real users.

  2. Accelerating Research with AI

    AI can speed up certain research tasks but is currently most helpful in the planning and analysis stages.

  3. CARE: Structure for Crafting AI Prompts

    To get better results from generative-AI chatbots, write CAREful prompts. Include context, what you’re asking the system to do, rules for how to do it, and examples of what you want.

  4. How Do Generative AI Systems Work?

    Generative AI systems are prediction machines. This article breaks down neural networks and LLMs in nontechnical language.

  5. Sycophancy in Generative-AI Chatbots

    Large language models like ChatGPT can lie to elicit approval from users. This phenomenon, called sycophancy, can be detected in state-of-the-art models.