Still true: 5 users find most of your usability problems
NN/g's classic finding — that testing with five users uncovers most usability issues — still holds and still gets ignored by teams who think they need a 'proper' sample size.
nngroup.com
daily design digest
Get the weekly emailPublished 13 July 2026 · Source dated 1 April 2026
New MIT Sloan research argues AI's biggest impact comes from re-sequencing entire workflows, not automating single tasks. It's fresh academic framing — a lens to try, not a proven playbook yet.

Coach
Sketch your current workflow on one project as a chain of handoffs (you → tool → you), and mark the single handoff where AI could actually change the sequence, not just save time.
Source: mitsloan.mit.edu ·
NN/g's classic finding — that testing with five users uncovers most usability issues — still holds and still gets ignored by teams who think they need a 'proper' sample size.
nngroup.com
With AI tooling dominating design chatter, it's easy to forget the cheapest, fastest usability method still works: heuristic evaluation. It costs nothing but time and catches problems before you ever test with real users.
uxdesign.cc
Nielsen's usability heuristics remain a go-to lightweight method for catching obvious UX problems before user testing, decades after they were written. It's boring, reliable, and still worth learning properly.
interaction-design.org