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UCD CoachPractice brief · UCD methods
Published 24 August 2026 · Source dated 1 August 2025
Used for: Alpha assumption; Stakeholder brief; Portfolio proof; Tool experiment; Method refresh. Practice brief for the gate you are in — not an industry digest dump.
Hype check: Established. Treated as established practice. Source dated 1 August 2025.
Saves the claim and source date (1 August 2025) on this device. No account.
The core toolkit — usability testing, heuristic walkthroughs, task analysis — is still what separates a junior portfolio that convinces from one that doesn't. It's established practice, not a trend to chase, and it's cheap to do properly.
Coach
Run a 15-minute guerrilla usability test on your current portfolio project with someone who's never seen it, and write down every point where they hesitated or got confused.
Source: alistapart.com ·
Coach is the forward habit — today's five, every morning. Surf is the rearward workbench on the same briefing corpus. Today's five is not restaged here.
Open today's five on UCD Coach
Daily email stays on Coach. Surf has no subscribe form.
More practice briefs on the same topic — not today's five from UCD Coach.
A round-up of 2026 industry reports argues AI is reshaping how design work gets done — faster iteration, more code-adjacent prototyping — rather than eliminating design roles outright. The caveat: the data is self-reported and varies by company.
medium.com
Method-focused coverage keeps pushing back on the idea that AI replaces user research — the real shift is faster, lighter testing loops.
smashingmagazine.com
Standards-focused design writing keeps returning to content-first workflows - writing real copy before polishing visuals. It matters more now that AI makes slick-looking mockups cheap to produce.
alistapart.com
