Introduction to Volume 21, Issue 1

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Our November 2025 essay is “Beyond P-Values: Bayesian Approaches for User Experience Research,” by Mohsen Rafiei and Iman Tahamtan. In the essay, they present an introduction to applications of Bayesian analysis in UX research. 

This issue also includes two research papers.

The first paper is “Improving Wearable Haptics Through Measuring Vibrotactile Sensitivity,” by Batuhan Erkat, Glenn Fernandes, Timo Kunkel, Andrea Fanelli, Jake Zuena, and Jaclyn Pytlarz. The authors describe two experiments investigating the perceptual limits of vibrotactile sensation along the forearm with potential implications for the design of vibrotactile UIs.

The second paper is “A Study of Front-End Developers’ Views of UX Professionals : Usability Tests Are Like Unicorns,” by Rolf Molich and Jurek Kirakowski. Multiple teams of UX professionals interviewed front-end developers to explore the derivation of front-end developer personas based on attitudes towards UX, UX research, and the resulting implications for improved cooperation between UX professionals and front-end developers.

Published in: in Volume 21, Issue 1,

The Authors

  • Photo of Bill AbertBill Albert, PhD

    Dr. Albert is Founder and Principal of Greenlight Idea Lab, the only global agency exclusively focused on concept and product validation. Prior to Greenlight Idea Lab, Bill was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Customer Experience at Mach49, a growth incubator for global businesses, and Executive Director of the User Experience Center and Adjunct Professor in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University. He has more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and has presented his work in user experience at more than 50 national and international conferences. He co-wrote (with Tom Tullis) the first book on UX metrics, Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting UX Metrics (third edition published in 2022), spawning the quantitative movement in UX. He received his PhD from Boston University. He completed a post-doc at Nissan Cambridge Basic Research with a focus on cognitive demands in the use of navigation systems.

  • James R. (Jim) Lewis, Ph.D

    Dr. Lewis is a Distinguished User Experience Researcher at MeasuringU. He has published influential papers on the assessment of perceived usability and sample size estimation for usability studies and has product experience in the design and evaluation of user interfaces (graphical, spoken, mobile), including having been the lead interaction designer for the product widely regarded as the first smart phone, the Simon. He is on over 90 US patents and has over 100 publications. His five books include Practical Speech User Interface Design and, with Jeff Sauro, Quantifying the User Experience and Surveying the User Experience. In 2021, he was inducted into the Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Florida.