Experiences: User Experiences

Qualitative user interviews are a core method of user research with which UX professionals likely feel very confident. However, when running user interviews for products that require users to interact with Generative AI (GenAI) experiences, there are some differences, so be prepared to ask certain key questions.

In this article, we’ll provide a definitive collection of qualitative interview questions that you can incorporate into your next user-research project for GenAI products. We’ve designed these questions to uncover insights at different stages of the product lifecycle, ensuring that your research remains human-centered and actionable. Maze AI’s excellent blog post on UX research interview questions categorizes these questions into three types:

1. Questions about the problem—The purpose of these questions is to understand the user’s core painpoints and goals.
2. Questions about the people—These questions let you gain insights into the users themselves, including their behaviors and preferences.
3. Questions about the product—Asking these questions lets you explore how users interact with and perceive the product your team is building. Read More

As recently as 25 years ago, the physical reality in which we lived was an analog world that was becoming increasingly global. While globalization is still very much a factor today, our world is now decidedly connected and is becoming increasingly virtual. However, thanks to a combination of enabling technology and the possible impacts of global warming, some aspects of globalization are shifting back to being local. This connectedness—both virtual and local—is contributing to the emerging world of smartware.

As we detailed in “The Smartware Transformation,” smartware is a convergence of emerging technologies and science. Artificial intelligence (AI) is fueling its rise. The technologies that are enabling smartware include the Internet of Things (IoT), mixed-reality environments, and additive fabrication, or 3D printing, as are incredible advances in sciences such as genomics and neuroscience. Some or all of these advances are core to the emergence of incredible new products that are just over the horizon—products such as self-driving vehicles and neighborhood parts manufacturing. In “Smartware, AI, and Magical Products,” we took a look at the current darling of technology and entertainment media: artificial intelligence. We’ll continue that analysis in this installment, as we look at some other core smartware technologies, before covering the key sciences underlying smartware in our next column. Read More

The digital landscape has seen a remarkable transformation in the user experience. Over the years, the ways in which users have interacted with their devices have taken numerous twists and turns. The importance of adapting to these ever-evolving user interfaces cannot be stressed enough. To truly grasp the magnitude of this change, one must embark on a journey from the inception of the World Wide Web to the sleek wearables of today.

The Dawn of Digital: The World Wide Web

The early days of the Internet were uncharted territories. Web sites, in their infancy, had basic, sometimes clunky user interfaces. Navigating these early Web sites was more of an adventure, with each click perhaps leading to the unknown. While these sites served their purpose, they left much to be desired in terms of their user experience. Read More