One of the hardest parts of UX research isn’t choosing the right method or running the sessions.

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It’s letting go of what you think you already know.

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As designers and developers, we’re paid for our expertise. Over time, that experience builds intuition — and intuition is valuable. But it can also quietly turn into assumption. And assumptions are where good products start to drift away from real people.

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The hidden problem with “experience”

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Experience can trick us into skipping steps.

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We’ve seen similar products before.

We’ve solved comparable problems.

We’ve worked with this type of user, this industry, this platform.

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So we assume.

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We assume what users want.

We assume where friction exists.

We assume what “simple” means.

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The danger isn’t arrogance — it’s familiarity. Familiarity shortens our curiosity.

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Research isn’t about being right

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Good UX research isn’t about confirming your thinking. It’s about challenging it.

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The moment research becomes a tool to validate decisions that are already made, it stops being research. It becomes justification.

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Real insight often feels uncomfortable:

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• Users don’t behave how you expected
• They misunderstand things you thought were obvious
• They value something you almost removed

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That discomfort is a signal — not a failure.

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Letting go of ego doesn’t mean letting go of expertise

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Ego in UX isn’t loud or obvious. It’s subtle.

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It shows up as:

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• Leading questions
• Ignoring outlier feedback
• Explaining user behaviour instead of listening to it
• Designing solutions before understanding the problem

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Letting go of ego doesn’t mean you abandon your skills. It means you allow your skills to respond to reality rather than control it.

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Experience should guide how you explore — not what you conclude.

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Designing with curiosity, not certainty

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The most effective research mindset is curiosity.

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Curiosity sounds like:

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• “Help me understand…”
• “Why did you choose that?”
• “What were you expecting to happen?”

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It avoids:

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• “Wouldn’t it be better if…”
• “Most people usually…”
• “That’s probably because…”

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When you approach research with curiosity, users feel it. They open up. They stop trying to give the “right” answer.

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And that’s where real insight lives.

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Insight only matters if it changes something

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Research isn’t complete when findings are documented.

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It’s complete when:

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• assumptions are revised
• designs are adjusted
• decisions are questioned
• trade-offs are made consciously

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If nothing changes after research, the problem wasn’t the users — it was the mindset.

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Final thought

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The best UX work happens when we’re confident enough to admit we don’t know everything.

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When we stop designing for the user we imagine, and start designing for the people in front of us.

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Good research doesn’t make you look clever.

It makes the product feel obvious.

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And that’s the point.