Elizabeth Goodman / Mike Kuniavsky: Observing the User Experience in 2026: UX research in the era of AI, shifting organizational power, and remote work

CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)

Fridays 11:30am-12:30pm PT · Gates B3 · Open to the public

Elizabeth Goodman / Mike Kuniavsky

Observing the User Experience in 2026: UX research in the era of AI, shifting organizational power, and remote work

April 17, 2026

It's a weird time to be a UX researcher right now. There's more actual user research than ever before, yet fewer people have "UX Researcher" in their title. Product development for UX research and design is booming, yet chatter about their death pervades professional forums. What's going on? As Elizabeth Goodman and Mike Kuniavsky prepared the third edition of their widely used UX research methods handbook, Observing the User Experience, they realized they had to rewrite the whole thing. The completely rewritten and reconfigured third edition of the book launches next year. This talk will share what they learned in the process about how research jobs have changed, the new power dynamics of tech development, and the rise of AI.

Elizabeth Goodman is a design and strategy leader who works to improve healthcare in the United States. She currently serves as VP of Design and Strategy at A1M Solutions. Previously, she was Director of Design at 18F, a digital services group within the US government. Elizabeth has a PhD from UC Berkeley's School of Information, where she taught UX research. She is the lead author of the second and third editions of Observing the User Experience.
Mike Kuniavsky builds high-performing, diverse R&D teams that deliver breakthrough technical innovations by combining world-class research with cutting-edge product design. He is currently the Founding Product Lead at PaperMoon AI, an AI risk evaluation, measurement, and management startup. Previously, he led product strategy for AILuminate, an AI risk benchmark, at MLCommons. Before that he led an AI+neuroscience R&D group at Accenture Labs, and before that he was Head of Design at Xerox PARC. He is the originator of Observing the User Experience.