The Best of Nielsen Norman Group
20+ most popular Nielsen Norman Group articles, as voted by our community.
User advocates offering evidence-based user experience (UX) research, training, consulting. Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, Tog, and colleagues.
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ChatGPT Lifts Business Professionals’ Productivity and Improves Work Quality
In a study of business professionals using ChatGPT to write business documents, task time decreased, while rated quality improved substantially.
Nielsen Norman Group on Customer Experience
When to Empathy Map: 3 Options
Empathy maps are a powerful, flexible tool that can be used to plan for future research studies, capture insights during current user research, and communicate research insights from research that has…
Nielsen Norman Group on Customer Journey
How to Conduct Research for Customer Journey Mapping
When conducting research for customer-journey maps, use qualitative methods that allow direct interaction with or observation of users, such as interviews, field studies, and diary studies.
Nielsen Norman Group on CX
When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
Journey maps combine two powerful instruments—storytelling and visualization—in order to help teams understand and address customer needs.
7 Ways to Analyze a Customer-Journey Map
Evaluate your journey map to identify low and high points, failures to set expectations, unnecessary or too long steps, channel transitions, and moments of truth. Use this information to find…
Nielsen Norman Group on Design Thinking
Design Thinking: The Learner’s Journey
As an individual learns design thinking, they go through 4 learning phases: newcomer, adopter, leader, and grandmaster.
Nielsen Norman Group on Personas
Personas vs. Jobs-to-Be-Done
Jobs-to-be-done focus on user problems and needs, while well-executed personas include the same information and also add behavioral and attitudinal details.
Why Personas Fail
Personas are useful tools for UX work, so why do they often fail? Find out what pitfalls cause personas to fail, and how to avoid and overcome them.
Nielsen Norman Group on Product Design
How to Draw a Wireframe (Even if You Can’t Draw)
Even people with limited drawing abilities can learn to sketch a wireframe if they learn a few common conventions used to represent various design elements.
«Use physical constraints to prevent obsessing over tiny aesthetic details: Thick pens or sharpies Time boxing Limited space for the sketch»
Nielsen Norman Group on Usability
How Many Test Users in a Usability Study?
The answer is 5, except when it's not. Most arguments for using more test participants are wrong, but some tests should be bigger and some smaller.
Marking Required Fields in Forms
Using an asterisk to mark required fields is an easy way to improve the usability of your forms. Only marking optional fields makes it difficult for people to fill out the form.
Nielsen Norman Group on User Research
UX Research Cheat Sheet
User research can be done at any point in the design cycle. This list of methods and activities can help you decide which to use when.
Nielsen Norman Group on UX
Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users.
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
20 user-research methods: where they fit in the design process, whether they are attitudinal or behavioral, qualitative or quantitative, and their context of use.
Nielsen Norman Group on Visual Design
UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet
Understand similarities and differences among empathy maps, customer journey maps, experience maps, and service blueprints.
The Anatomy of a Good Design: An Analysis of 4 Sites
Visually pleasing designs use consistent type styles and spacing, create a visual hierarchy, and utilize an underlying grid structure.
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Infinite Scrolling: When to Use It, When to Avoid It
Infinite scrolling minimizes interaction costs and increases user engagement, but it isn’t a good fit for every website. For some, pagination or a Load More button will be a better solution.
Antipersonas: What, How, Who, and Why?
Antipersonas help anticipate how products can be misused in ways that can harm users and the business.
Setting UX Roles and Responsibilities in Product Development: The RACI Template
Use a flexible responsibility-assignment matrix to clarify UX roles and responsibilities, anticipate team collaboration points, and maintain productivity in product development.
«Roles that are Responsible and Accountable for a given task need to work together in collaborative partnership to get the work done. The accountable person should ensure how and when any Consulted and Informed roles are brought into the process. »
UX Writing: Study Guide
Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how to write and present information that aligns with users’ needs and online reading behaviors.
Accidental Dismissal of Overlays: A Common Mobile Usability Problem
Overlays often need to be dismissed in a manner that goes against users’ expectations.
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