Influential Nielsen Norman Group Tees Off on Google AI UX

It's been awhile since we've heard from the famous Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) in the search space.

NN/g is a long-running UX research firm founded by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman, known for usability heuristics and evidence-based UX guidance. They are one of the most respected name in usability research - that defined modern UX/UI principles and continue to test how people interact with digital interfaces. Their critiques of AI-driven search experiences (like Google's AI Mode) carry weight because they come from decades of empirical testing and design authority.

Why Care?

NN/g's work influences product teams and sets UX baselines that publishers, platforms, and toolmakers track. When NN/g flags major friction in a Google ux, it signals potential shifts in how people find and click results. That has direct traffic implications for sites focused on search as a primary acquisition channel for traffic.

Main criticisms of Google AI Mode

Poor discoverability

Users often miss AI Mode entirely. Even with visual affordances, participants in NN/g's study overlooked the feature or did not even realize it existed!

Far Too many similar Google AI offerings

People confuse AI Mode with other Google AI features such as Gemini and AI Overviews. The overlap waters down and erodes clarity about where to start and what each mode does.

The welcome tips are easy to bypass, especially for users who launch searches from the browser address bar and multiple tabs. That leaves people with zero real world context on how to even use the mode.

Long, unformatted answers = back button

Responses are majorly text heavy and very hard to scan. Participants reported getting seriously lost in blocks of prose and abandoning the entire sections rather than slogging through it all.

Conversation sprawl and weak navigation - eyes glaze over

As follow-ups pile up, threads become impossible to manage. Google Tabs like Images or Videos can jump back to the first query instead of the most recent one, which short circuts user flow.

Hallucinations still happen - say it aint so

Despite citations, NN/g observed fabricated facts, details, and even including made-up publications. Reliability remains a massive risk for users and for sites referenced in synthesized answers.

Bottom line

NN/g sees strong technical potential paired with usability gaps that can suppress adoption and trust. For SEOs and webmasters, that combination affects visibility, clicks, and how your content is represented inside AI-generated summaries.

Related NN/G Resources:

• Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design - the foundational UX principles used in ux design worldwide.
• Don Norman - co-founder of NN/g and author of The Design of Everyday Things
• NN/g Research Reports : evidence-based usability testing and findings covering AI interfaces, navigation, and content design.
• Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience - users prefer your site to behave like the ones they already know.
• Designing Web Usability (1999) and Homepage Usability (2001) - early NN/g books that defined best practices for web design.
• NN/g UX Training and Certification - long-running professional education programs shaping global UX standards.