Resist the urge to build products in the blind

Hey folks,

Happy new year! Here are 10 things in the field of UX I recently found interesting:

1. Researchers shared an open-access article that introduced a new validation tool (including benchmarks) for assessing chatbot experiences called chatBot Usability Scale (or BUS-11). (h/t Lawton Pybus)
   
   

2. Nikki Anderson shared worth-a-read user research takeaways including these gems: 1) “The earlier you research, the less risk you. For every $1 spent fixing an issue during development, it costs $10 to fix in production (1).” 2)“The best insights come early—before anyone’s built anything (2).”
   
   

3. Recent UX x AI resources worth a look: 1) The Shape of AI by Emily Campbell contains a playbook of emerging UX/UI (see also: IF design patterns), 2) Explore unique ways to AI-ify your product beyond chatbots, and 3) Google’s 5-day GenAI intensive course is now free.
   
   

4. I enjoyed learning about the landscape theory and the four predictor variables of preference in Dejan Blagic's article. “Landscape theory can help us understand how people prefer certain environments in nature and why. The reasons for this lie in the theory of evolution. We still have the same cognitive functions of understanding and exploration that our ancestors had, and these cognitive functions influence which user interface we will prefer.”
   
   

5. A senior researcher dropped some fire on Reddit about how product teams fail when conducting research (and ways to do better), such as these: 1) “When customers have an ecosystem of tools, I ask about the tools they use before going to specifics about a particular one.” 2) “My most powerful source of latent opportunities is when workarounds organically emerge from different people that overlap in function.”
   
   

6. On design leadership: 1) Rachel Kibitz shared a useful blueprint of essential questions for design execs. 2) Slava Shestopalov wrote about how the 8-step change model by John Kotter enables a design leader to provide the most value. (See also: A Sense of Urgency, Our Iceberg Is Melting, Change, and the Design Leader Dilemma).
   
   

7. Delve deeper into working with micro design details: 1) Update two components simultaneously in a prototype. 2) Dive into a crash course on primitive and semantic variables. 3) Explore useful definitions for chips/badges/tags (1,2, 3 + 4).
   
   

8. Did the UX Trends 2025 report need to be so bleak? “UX is increasingly a byproduct of business objectives, not the driving force. We’re handing our designs to Figma while it trains its AI. We’re handing our design systems to growth teams so they can squeeze every last penny out of customers. We're trading empathy for algorithms. We’re shipping new products before they’re even ready.”
   
   

9. Teresa Torres shared how Edwin Yuen and The Times London use Vistaly to connect user insights with product discovery via opportunity solution trees. For those who aren’t familiar with Teresa’s work, read Continuous Discovery Habits.
   
   

10. I remember seeing the 5W1H framework on a sticky note in my dad’s office growing up. Maybe it’s time to try this problem-solving framework (FigJam) for product roadmap prioritization. Might as well also throw in the 5 Whysfor good measure.

Thanks for reading!

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Sincerely,
Gerren