UX Quiz: 2025 Year in Review

January 2, 2026

Summary: Test your usability knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles that we published last year.

1. You’re designing a contextual menu for an email app. Which design decision follows best practice?

2. Put primary actions like Reply and New message only in contextual menus to reduce clutter.

3. Use contextual menus to store secondary actions related to a specific item.

4. Place unrelated global settings (like Change language) in the contextual menu for convenience.

5. Use a different icon for contextual menus on every screen to match that screen’s layout.

6. Which of the following best reflects the difference between digital twins and synthetic users?

7. Synthetic users and digital twins are the same thing; the terms are interchangeable.

8. Synthetic users are AI models of specific individuals; digital twins are generic simulations of a user group.

9. Synthetic users simulate a user segment using group-level descriptors, while digital twins simulate a particular individual using rich, person-specific data.

10. Synthetic users are based only on past behavioral logs, while digital twins are based only on demographic information.

11. Research shows 5 key motivations for using smart-home technologies (like smart thermostats or smart lightbulbs). Which of these is NOT one of those core motivations?

12. Convenience

13. Safety and peace of mind

14. Saving resources and money

15. Signaling social status

16. You’re planning a diary study. Which of the following is a best practice for designing diary-study entries?

17. Maximize open-ended questions; more free text always means better data.

18. Avoid rating scales because they’re too “quantitative” for diary studies.

19. Balance closed, open-ended, and multimedia questions while prioritizing participant effort.

20. Ask participants to upload a video for every entry to capture rich context.

21. A UX team runs a large survey to measure satisfaction with onboarding, then follows up with usability tests to understand why people struggle. The team analyzes the quantitative and qualitative data together to inform the same decision. This is an example of:

22. Triangulation error

23. Mixed-methods research

24. Multivariate testing

25. Benchmarking

26. A team is building an AI assistant for work tasks. The team wants users to trust the AI assistant. Which approach is most effective, according to research?

27. Give the AI an entertaining persona, with jokes and emotional backstories.

28. Emphasize the AI’s analytical capabilities and show clear, task-focused reasoning and limits.

29. Hide uncertainty and always speak confidently, even when the AI is unsure.

30. Add emojis and friendly small talk so people feel like they’re chatting with a colleague.

31. Which of the following best describes the legacy users of a complex application:

32. First-time users actively learning the system

33. Long-time heavy users who push the tool to its limits

34. Long-time users with deep familiarity but who rely on awkward workarounds

35. Long-time users of a similar app who are switching to this app

36. A team is exploring AI-simulated users (digital twins or synthetic users) to support UX research. Which statement is most accurate?

37. AI-simulated users can fully replace research with real people once the model is trained.

38. Models built from rich, individual-level data tend to be more accurate than models based only on generic demographics.

39. Synthetic users always precisely predict both behavior trends and exact effect sizes.

40. Digital twins automatically eliminate bias because they use objective AI.

41. You’ve completed a large multi-country study and you’ve shared results with your team. Now you want a hands-on session that helps the team translate insights into concrete opportunities and design directions. Which type of research workshop should you use?

42. Research-alignment workshop

43. Empathy workshop

44. Research-application workshop

45. Brainstorming sprint with no research materials

46. What is the difference between button state and button style?

47. Button state is about color only; button style is everything else.

48. Button styles indicate visual emphasis (e.g., primary vs. secondary), while button states indicate interaction status (e.g., enabled, hover, pressed).

49. Button styles are temporary; button states are permanent.

50. Button styles are for desktop; button states are for mobile.

What Was Your Score?

• **10: **You’re a UX expert! Are you UX Certified?
• 8–9: You know your UX, but there’s room for improvement!
• 6–7: You did alright; subscribe to our newsletter to improve next year.
• 1–5: Not so good. Check out the articles to learn more about the right answers.
• **0: **There’s room for beginners in UX! Read up and try again.

Can’t Get Enough UX?

Try last year’s UX Quiz for 10 more questions.