short question

if an expert user's time per task is 15 seconds, and im somehow able to lower a first time user's time from 3 minutes to 1 minute and 50 seconds, is that considered a successful design? if not, what number is considered "successful"?

details

im a graphic designer and it's my first time trying out user testing and im feeling a bit overwhelmed 😅

im trying to conduct a very simple user test of an app. im planning on measuring how long it takes for a first time user to complete tasks in an app and comparing their task times to expert users. am also measuring number of errors per task.

i'll be making an app prototype based on what i find and comparing first time users' task times using the old app vs my prototype.

ideally, i'd like their task time using my prototype to be as fast as that of an expert user; but realistically i know i can improve their task times but not get them to expert user level.

for context, the current interface is so unintuitive that someone needs to teach every new user how to navigate the app. the users are delivery drivers and are almost always in a rush and have no time to focus and figure out how to navigate the app.

https://preview.redd.it/1e0da0436q1h1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=f525e59085210bb862a56866018f408eb898ccf9

My main criticism of Claude is the aggressive and unclear usage limits.

I have a Pro plan and assumed I would be on the safe side for professional usage, as I generally am with ChatGPT. Instead, several times I was blocked in the middle of real work sessions without any meaningful warning beforehand. When you use AI professionally, this is extremely disruptive.

The biggest problem is not even the existence of limits, every AI provider has limits. The real issue is the user experience around them.

The warning system feels vague, inconsistent and difficult to anticipate properly. You never really know:

* how much usage you have left,

* what exactly triggered the limitation,

* whether the limit is hourly, daily or temporary,

* or whether a long working session is suddenly going to be interrupted.

Looks like a very unfair strategy....For professional users working on complex projects, this creates constant uncertainty and breaks workflow continuity. A professional tool should provide clear remaining quota visibilit and transparent explanations.

Right now, using Claude sometimes feels like driving a car with a fuel gauge that randomly disappears.

Fortunately, I now systematically keep ChatGPT as a backup solution, because unlike Claude, it has never suddenly abandoned me in the middle of a critical work session, even if its document-handling capabilities are currently less advanced in some areas.

And no, I am not paid to say this...

Our team is completely remote and spread across different regions. We need something where we can all just get on the same page visually without having to schedule around 8 timezones.

Does anyone else deal with this and did you guys find something that works?

Its a health app, quant data looks decent. DAU growing, retention acceptable, features adopted but 3 star reviews keep saying "good but confusing" and I can't connect that to anything in analytics. Surveys don't help because users rate 4/5 satisfaction then leave 3 star reviews.

I need qualitative data at scale. Im not asking what users think but seeing what they do. Specifically mobile where small frustrations compound into uninstalls.

I am 23 F feeling like everyone is moving fast growing whereas I'm stuck

I have around 2 years of experience working with startups in UI/UX product design, branding, social media management and currently I’m freelancing while looking for a full-time opportunity.

Honestly, with the current job market, I’ve been feeling confused about what direction makes the most sense long-term both in terms of growth and financial stability.

I’m actively improving my design skills, but I’m also thinking about future career scope: Should I continue growing in UI/UX, explore AI + design related roles, consider an MBA later, or is there any other field/role with good future scope that I might not know enough about yet?

My parents are strongly pushing me toward an MBA as well, and I’m honestly unsure about that decision too.

Would genuinely appreciate career especially considering the current market situation.

I'm watching the same changes to the industry that everybody else is. And I'm sure I'm feeling the same ambivalence that a lot of others are experiencing. I'm excited but worried; ambitious but cautious, optimistic but disappointed. It's whiplash!

Professional conversations range so much from AI-bro-speak (trendy, questionable opinions, jargon) to corporate-babble (AI-first, agentic-powerhouse). It's hard, as a UX professional to get through the noise and the hype right now to get to what we really need.

We don't need to know what tools are the latest trend; we're adults. We can do that homework on our own without another Top 10 Best Figma Replacements Using AI list. We also don't need another thinkpiece on Why UX is Safe in an AI Future. (spoilers: That's not a guarantee).

So what do we need? And who am I to even have an opinion on this? I'm a Senior UX Manager and a UX Architect with 14+ years experience in this industry. I run the user experience team at a cyber security company. I also own our design system and our information architecture strategy and implementation. I coach and mentor UX professionals of all levels. I maintain a strong professional network of seasoned software engineers, architects, and developers.

Over the last yearish I've been watching the increasing trend of AI moving in as a stable tool that's finally positioned to provide more value than hype. Over the last several months, I've jumped in head-first myself and I've come to the conclusion that much of what UX needs, specifically, is an aggressive, fast-paced, practical, hands-on crash course in some of the technical side of software. Why? Because if we don't understand what these tools are, what they're doing, and how they work, we can't possibly wrangle them to our advantage.

Using this tooling without knowing how it works is just following best-practice checklists and copy/pasting prompts. Which anybody, in any discipline can do. So no wonder the conclusion we're likely to reach in doing this is: This is all hype and no value. Of course that's what you're going to get out of it. Nobody has taught you what it is, how it works, and how you can leverage it!

I've been going pretty deep on this; working through the basics (what even is an LLM, how does it process conversation, what's the difference between a chat interface and a CLI), foundational setup so you're not repeating yourself every session, and building out prompts designed to actually be customized for your specific needs. I've got a rough 6-week ramp-up I put together for getting UX professionals up to speed quickly that I'm pretty happy with.

I'd genuinely love to dig into what others would find most useful in terms of practical, hands-on guidance. What's the gap you're feeling most right now?

Hey all! I am new to the UX world. I have just started some courses for certification in UX Design. I am working on my Capstone Portfolio project and need to get a lil research done to create this app for my project, and this would require me to make a quick survey and have people volunteer to participate.

If you guys can please give me some insight on where I might post this survey, I would be so grateful!!

Thank you!

I have been thinking about this for a while and wanted some honest opinions.

I am a UX designer and I’ve been working on a personal side project around money/expense tracking. Not trying to build another “finance bro” app with charts everywhere lol.

One thing I noticed is most expense trackers either:
- feel super corporate
- are overloaded with features
- or just become annoying after 2 weeks

I’ve personally tried a bunch of them and I always end up uninstalling them even though tracking money is genuinely useful.

So before going in fully with the design, i wanna know some thing:

- do you guys actually use expense trackers consistently?
- if yes, which one?
- if no, why did you stop?
- manual entry or auto-sync, what do you prefer?
- what’s the MOST annoying thing about these apps?
- would better UI/UX actually make you use one more consistently or nah?

Also random thought:

if a money tracking app felt more personal/calm/rewarding and less “you overspent this month”, would that actually make a difference?

Would love brutally honest opinions tbh.

Not in a dishonest way. More like… our brains quietly rewrite the story afterward.

We saw something recently where users kept saying they “always use search.” Confidently. No hesitation. But analytics showed the actual search feature barely got touched.

Turns out they were mostly using Cmd+F in the browser and mentally grouping that into “search.”

And honestly, the more I think about it, the more I wonder how often this happens.

Someone says onboarding was smooth because they eventually figured it out after 20 minutes of confusion. Someone says a dashboard feels intuitive because they’ve memorized it after six months. Someone says they “never had issues” while actively avoiding half the product.

Makes me think qualitative research and analytics aren’t really competing truths. They’re measuring two completely different things.

One measures what people believe their experience was.
The other measures what actually happened while their coffee was getting cold and Slack was pinging them every 14 seconds.

And weirdly… I think both are important.

Because products fail from reality sometimes.
But they also fail from perception.

Curious if anyone else has had a moment where user memory and user behavior felt like two completely different universes.