January 20, 2026 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #542
This newsletter issue was sent out to 179,366 subscribers on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.
Editorial
Getting a buy-in for UX research can be remarkably difficult. You might find yourself constrained by wrong assumptions and wrong expectations about what UX research actually entails. And sometimes access to users is very restricted.
But research doesn’t have to be extremely time-consuming or expensive. And it doesn’t have to be disruptive. It’s the best way to reduce risk and improve clarity. In this newsletter issue, let's explore useful techniques, methodologies, and tools for UX research — even if it’s on budget.
As usual, you can connect with us in the online world: here’s a quick overview of our upcoming online workshops:
- Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Feb 16 – Mar 2 - Designing For Complex UI Masterclass Design
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 3–17 - Building Interactive, Accessible Components with Modern CSS & JS Dev
with Stephanie Eckles. Mar 5–13 - Figma Workflow Masterclass UX
with Christine Vallaure. Mar 18–24
Also, meet our friendly, practical and fun SmashingConfs 2026:
- SmashingConf Amsterdam 🇳🇱 (Apr 13–16, 2026)
- SmashingConf Freiburg 🇩🇪 (Sep 7–10, 2026)
- SmashingConf Antwerp 🇧🇪 (Oct 12–15, 2026)
- Jump to all Smashing events →
In the meantime though, have a truly smashing week, and let’s get better with the tools and strategies that we’ve got to make our lives at least a tiny liiittle bit easier!
— Vitaly
1. Choosing The Right Qual Methods
Qualitative research helps us understand human behavior. But how to choose the right research method for a project? Allison Grayce Marshall takes you through the process step by step — from aligning on the time and scale of research to synthesizing your data into insights.
If you need a short and sweet guide you can refer to during the research phase, Allison also summarized all the considerations in a handy cheat sheet (PDF).
2. Design Research Framework
In many organizations, there’s a lack of clarity around design research. To give you a touchstone and checklist you can use in conversations with anyone who participates in design decisions within your organization, Erika Hall created a design research framework. It involves six phases that’ll help you make more informed and intentional decisions about practice and process.
3. Making UX Research Hard To Ignore
Research, data, and facts aren’t everything. They don’t win arguments, and often, the stronger and louder the data is, the more likely it is to be questioned. To inspire trust and confidence, your data needs a story wrapped around it. Vitaly shares practical tips that’ll help you turn your research into narratives that make it hard to ignore.
4. Building A UX Research Database
How do you store and manage all the data and insights from your UX research projects? Odette Jansen utilizes Notion to host her research database. If you would like to give it a try, too, she summarized everything you need to know to set up your own UX research repository in Notion.
To get you up and running quickly, Odette also shares a free UXR Repo template which you can duplicate and adapt to your needs.
5. Measuring UX Research Impact
How can you make sure your UX research makes a real impact and doesn’t collect dust in someone’s drawer? Karin den Bouwmeester proposes a multi-level framework for defining and measuring UX research impact.
For practical tips on how to make a strong case for UX research, even when stakeholders are reluctant, also be sure to check out Vitaly’s post.
6. Leveling Up As A UX Researcher
As a user researcher, your journey begins with executing basic research, and as you gain experience, you’ll slowly but surely start to leverage learnings beyond specific project work. To make it easier to assess your own progress, Dave Hora charts the growth of researchers from junior to mid-level and senior researcher on three axes: process mastery, technical competence, and organizational influence. A great overview of how researchers level up their skills over time.
7. Organizing UX Research
Even the best UX research can only make an impact when it is open and accessible to the entire team. Daniel Pidcock’s Atomic UX Research framework guides and informs evidence-based design decisions by breaking knowledge down into its constituent parts. Each of them is a building block on the road to larger discoveries, making it easier to discover patterns and synthesize insights in a reliable way.
8. Useful Calculators For UX Research
Testing with just a few people is often more valuable for finding key blockers than trying to get statistically reliable survey results. But what is the right number of participants for surveys, card sorting, and usability testing? Vitaly shares practical tips, tools, and guides to help you better assess your sample size and get the most out of your research.
9. Upcoming Workshops and Conferences
That’s right! We run online workshops on frontend and design, be it accessibility, performance, or design patterns. In fact, we have a couple of workshops coming up soon, and we thought that, you know, you might want to join in as well.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Deep Dive On Accessibility Testing Dev
with Manuel Matuzović. Jan 19 – Feb 2 - Building With AI For Everyone. An Introduction To Lovable Free
with Christine Vallaure. Jan 20 - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Feb 16 – Mar 2 - Designing For Complex UI Masterclass Design
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 3–17 - Building Interactive, Accessible Components with Modern CSS & JS Dev
with Stephanie Eckles. Mar 5–13 - Figma Workflow Masterclass UX
with Christine Vallaure. Mar 18–24 - How To Measure UX and Design Impact UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + UX training - Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + UX training - Jump to all workshops →
10. Accessible UX Research, eBook Now Available For Download 📚
We’ve got exciting news! eBook versions of Accessible UX Research, a new Smashing Book by Michele A. Williams, are now available for download! Which means soon the book will go to the printer. Order the eBook for instant download now or reserve your print copy at the presale price.
Accessible UX Research is your practical guide to making UX research more inclusive of participants with different needs — from planning and recruiting to facilitation, asking better questions, avoiding bias, and building trust. Download a free sample (PDF, 2.3MB) or get the eBook right away.
That’s All, Folks!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support in helping us keep the web dev and design community strong with our newsletter. See you next time!
This newsletter issue was written and edited by Geoff Graham (gg), Cosima Mielke (cm), Vitaly Friedman (vf), and Iris Lješnjanin (il).
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