PHILIP BURGESS

Understanding your audience is key to creating products, services, or experiences that truly resonate. One of the most effective tools for gaining this understanding is empathy mapping. This technique helps you step into the shoes of your users or customers, revealing their thoughts, feelings, and motivations in a clear, visual way. If you want to connect better with your audience and design solutions that meet their real needs, empathy mapping is a skill worth mastering. Emp

Recruiting the right participants is one of the biggest challenges in UX research. Without suitable users, even the best-designed studies can fail to deliver meaningful insights. Finding people who match your target audience, are willing to participate, and provide honest feedback requires careful planning and smart strategies. This post explores practical ways to recruit participants effectively, helping you gather valuable data that drives better user experiences. Participa

User experience (UX) research plays a crucial role in designing products that truly meet user needs. Choosing the right UX research platform can make the difference between insightful data and wasted effort. With so many options available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This guide breaks down some of the top UX research platforms and offers practical advice on selecting the best one for your specific goals. UX research platforms What Makes a UX Research Platform Valuable? Bef

User experience (UX) research is essential for creating products that truly meet user needs. As technology evolves, so do the tools that help researchers gather insights, analyze behavior, and improve designs. Choosing the right UX research tools can save time, increase accuracy, and enhance collaboration across teams. This post explores the best UX research tools you should consider in 2026 to stay ahead in your design process. Top UX Research Tools for 2026 Why Choosing the

User experience (UX) research plays a vital role in designing products that meet user needs effectively. When working with sensitive data, especially in healthcare or financial sectors, compliance with regulations like HIPAA and SOC2 is not optional. Ignoring these standards can lead to legal penalties, loss of trust, and damage to your organization’s reputation. This post provides a clear, practical checklist to help UX researchers ensure their work aligns with HIPAA and SOC

User experience (UX) plays a critical role in the success of enterprise products and services. Yet, managing UX across large teams and complex projects can be challenging. Without clear governance, inconsistencies arise, slowing down development and weakening the user experience. A UX governance checklist helps teams maintain quality, align goals, and deliver seamless experiences at scale. This post provides a practical UX governance checklist template tailored for enterprise

User experience (UX) research is the backbone of designing products that truly meet user needs. Yet, many teams struggle to organize their findings effectively. Using the right UX research templates can simplify this process, making insights clearer and easier to share. This post explores the most common types of UX research templates, their layouts, and formats to help you choose the best fit for your projects. User journey mapping template displayed on laptop Why UX Researc

User experience (UX) research aims to understand how users interact with products and services to improve satisfaction and usability. One challenge in UX research is measuring success in a way that reflects real user needs and business goals. Google’s Heart Framework offers a clear, practical approach to this challenge. It helps teams focus on meaningful metrics that capture the full user experience, guiding design and evaluation efforts. This post explains what the Heart Fra

Usability testing remains a cornerstone of creating user-friendly digital products. Yet, traditional methods can be time-consuming and sometimes miss subtle user experience issues. AI-assisted usability testing offers a fresh approach by speeding up analysis and uncovering patterns that might go unnoticed. This post provides a practical checklist and a template to help you integrate AI tools into your usability testing process effectively. AI-Assisted Usability Testing Checkl

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Recruiting new talent and managing interviews can quickly become overwhelming without clear communication. I’ve learned that having well-crafted email templates for recruiting, scheduling, and confirmations saves time and reduces confusion for everyone involved. These templates help keep candidates informed and engaged, while making the process smoother for recruiters and hiring managers. In this post, I’ll share practical email template

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When I first started creating presentations for UX projects, I struggled to keep my audience engaged. I had plenty of data and design ideas, but the slides felt dry and disconnected. Then I discovered the power of storytelling in UX presentations. Using storytelling slide templates transformed how I shared my work and helped me connect with stakeholders on a deeper level. If you want your UX presentations to leave a lasting impression, u

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When developing a new product or service, understanding how your target audience reacts to your concept is crucial. Without this insight, you risk investing time and resources into ideas that may not resonate or succeed. That’s where a concept testing scorecard template becomes a valuable tool. It helps you evaluate ideas systematically, making it easier to decide which concepts deserve further development. I’ve used concept testing sco

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When working on user experience (UX) projects, decisions shape the final product. Yet, many teams struggle to keep track of why certain UX recommendations were made, who made them, and what impact they had. Without a clear record, teams risk repeating mistakes, losing valuable context, or confusing stakeholders. That’s where a decision log template becomes essential. It helps document UX recommendations clearly and consistently, making t

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When I first faced the challenge of managing a complex workflow, I quickly realized that breaking down tasks into manageable parts was essential. Without a clear structure, projects became overwhelming, deadlines slipped, and communication faltered. That’s when I discovered the power of a task analysis template designed specifically for complex workflows. It transformed how I approached projects and helped my team stay on track. In this

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When I first started working on user experience design, I quickly realized how challenging it can be to identify where users struggle with a product. One method that helped me uncover these pain points was the cognitive walkthrough. To make this process easier and more consistent, I developed a cognitive walkthrough worksheet template . This tool has since become a staple in my usability testing toolkit, and I want to share how it can he

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When I first joined a UX research team, I quickly realized how much time was wasted reinventing the wheel. Every project required crafting new prompts for interviews, surveys, or usability tests, often from scratch. This slowed down the process and sometimes led to inconsistent data. That’s when I started building a prompt library template tailored for UX research teams. It transformed how we worked, making research faster, clearer, and

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When you need fast feedback on a product or feature, setting up a full usability study can feel overwhelming. I’ve been there—tight deadlines, limited resources, and pressure to move quickly. That’s why I developed a lightweight usability testing template that helps me run quick, internal tests without sacrificing valuable insights. This approach saves time and keeps the focus on what really matters: understanding how users interact with

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When working on user experience (UX) projects, one challenge I often face is managing the wealth of insights gathered from research sessions, usability tests, and user interviews. These insights are valuable, but without a clear system to organize and reuse them, they tend to get lost or forgotten. That’s why I decided to create a UX insight library template—a structured way to capture, store, and retrieve UX knowledge for future project

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader When I first started working in user experience design, I struggled to clearly define what I wanted to test and why. I often found myself guessing what might improve the user journey without a solid plan. That changed when I discovered the power of a well-crafted UX hypothesis. It gave me a clear framework to state assumptions, test ideas, and measure results. If you want to improve your design process and make data-driven decisions, und

By Philip Burgess | UX Research Leader Creating a generative research plan can feel overwhelming without a clear roadmap. Yet, this type of research is essential for uncovering user needs, motivations, and behaviors before designing solutions. A well-crafted plan guides your team through the process, ensuring you gather meaningful insights that shape better products or services. This guide breaks down the steps to build a thorough generative research plan that delivers action