

How to Develop Agency: The Number-One Career Skill for the AI Age
Cultivate your ability to effect change actively rather than reacting passively. Human agency with the courage to do something new, without being told, will separate the designers of the future from the assembly-line workers of the past, and the empowered learner from the spoon-fed student.

Jakob Nielsen
6 days ago16 min read


UX Roundup: UX Unicorns | Captcha Must Die | Flow in UX | Dark Design | Avatar Animation
Herds of UX unicorns | Captcha Must Die | Supporting the Flow state | If it feels like dark design, it probably is | HeyGen’s Avatar IV worked better with a photorealistic avatar than a cartoon character

Jakob Nielsen
Jul 78 min read


Use the AI Transition Period to Transition Your Career
Summary: In the great UX pivot, you have 5 years to trade yesterday’s expertise for tomorrow’s relevance. Legacy UX skills won’t save you...

Jakob Nielsen
Jun 198 min read


UX Roundup: Developers Outrace UX | AI Traffic Safety | Dovetail Conference | Usability Poster | RIP Prompt Engineering | Comparing 6 Image Models
Developers outracing UX because of AI acceleration | AI is 5x times safer than humans when driving cars | Usability poster | Prompt engineering no longer a viable job

Jakob Nielsen
May 513 min read


UX Roundup: Modest UX Salary Drop | Reasoning Scaling Law | AI Task Scope Grows | Customer Journey Management | 3 New Image Generators
Reasoning model scaling law confirmed | AI task scope doubles every 7 Months | Customer journey management

Jakob Nielsen
Mar 3110 min read


UX Roundup: Jakob Live | Jakob’s Interview Answers | Perplexity UX Fails | Build a Side Business | Instagram 1K
The state of UX | Don’t settle: build a side business | 1,000 Instagram posts

Jakob Nielsen
Mar 248 min read


Declining ROI From UX Design Work
Diminishing returns for UX signal victory: usability battles have been won and the low-hanging fruit harvested.

Jakob Nielsen
Mar 2013 min read


Future is Lean, Mean, and Scary for UX Agencies
Increasing in-house UX maturity coupled with AI’s productivity explosion threatens the survival of UX consultancies and design agencies.

Jakob Nielsen
Feb 196 min read


UX Roundup: Status Updates | AI Tutoring | UX Optimism | Ideogram Text | AI-UX Conference | EU Multilingual LLM
Being asked for a status update is a bad sign | Strong results from AI tutors | UX Optimism | EU multilingual LLM

Jakob Nielsen
Feb 107 min read


UX Roundup: Wealth and Happiness | Wealth and AI | ASI and Unemployment
The relationship between wealth and happiness | Wealth and AI | Superintelligent AI and human unemployment

Jakob Nielsen
Jan 278 min read


UX Roundup: AI Research Window | AI Skill Substitution | World Economic Forum Predicts More UX Jobs | AI-UX Consultant | Bad Bird Lip-Synch
Closing AI research window | Inflection point for AI skill substitution | UX job growth | AI-UX consulting | Animating cute animals

Jakob Nielsen
Jan 209 min read


UX Roundup: 2025 UX Themes | Put New AI Models to the Test | AI Slide Creation | AI Analyzing Usability Tests | AI Job Creation | AI & UX Jobs
6 themes for UX in 2025 | Testing new AI with your own challenging tasks | AI middling at analyzing usability tests | AI’s impact on UX jobs

Jakob Nielsen
Jan 69 min read


Top 10 UX Articles of 2024
Jakob Nielsen's 2024 articles document UX as a field in transition, being revolutionized by AI, causing a need for professional development.

Jakob Nielsen
Dec 30, 202412 min read


UX Roundup: Sora: Not Impressed | AI Startups Growth | Hiring Staff with AI Skills | 150K LinkedIn Followers | AI Training on YouTube | Apple Intelligence Useless | Dr. AI | New o3 model
AI Startups Growth | Hiring Staff with AI Skills | Apple Intelligence Useless | Dr. AI | New o3 model

Jakob Nielsen
Dec 23, 202412 min read


UX Roundup: Designing AI Voices | AI Narrows Skill Gaps | New Music Video | Talk to Santa | Misadventures in Image Prompting | Bezos 95% AI | Multi-Tool AI Workflow | AI-UX Jobs
Emotional intent in AI voices | AI narrows skill gaps | Combining multiple AI tools into a single workflow | 13 AI-UX job openings Microsoft

Jakob Nielsen
Dec 16, 20249 min read


Design Leaders Should Go “Founder Mode”
The future of design leadership is not to aspire to ever-higher executive roles. Embrace “Founder Mode" hands-on and vision-based leadership

Jakob Nielsen
Nov 21, 20246 min read


UX Roundup: AI Camera | Web Design Mistakes | UX Job Openings
Directing the AI camera for emotional impact | Web design mistakes the same as ever | UX job openings: equal numbers for senior and junior

Jakob Nielsen
Nov 4, 20248 min read


Join the AI Revolution Now, or Forever Regret Missing Out
The transformative potential of the AI revolution is a career opportunity. Early engagement in AI creates joy and self-realization.

Jakob Nielsen
Aug 29, 20245 min read


UX Roundup: Why a Tiger? | Design Conference | AI Help Info | UX Degree or Keep Working? | AI Disinflation | IIT Top | AI Filmmaking | Hotshot AI Video
Why UX Tigers has a tiger brand | Major Design conference | Getting AI to provide help about itself | UX degree or keep working?

Jakob Nielsen
Aug 26, 202410 min read


AI Optimism
AI’s impact on job markets will likely mirror previous innovations. The projected 10,000x increase in AI by 2027 will bring wealth and jobs.

Jakob Nielsen
Aug 22, 20247 min read