1 min lesson
Know the developer's world, not just the UI
Answer "Which friction statement is a testable research question with a hypothesis, the form a daily driver would bring to an interviewer?" Then point to the lesson detail behind your choice.
Step 1 of 2
Know the developer's world, not just the UI
Trust in AI output: when do they accept, verify or reject a generation, and what breaks the trust?
Flow state: the cost of a context switch is high, so friction that breaks flow is felt sharply.
Review burden: AI shifts work from writing to reviewing, and reviewing bad output can cost more than writing from scratch.
Model choice: which model for which task, and how users reason about the tradeoff at all.
Lead with a friction, then turn it into a research question with a hypothesis. "The moment Agent makes a change I can't fully see, I hesitate before accepting. I'd bet that hesitation is the real adoption barrier, ahead of feature gaps. I'd test it with a study pairing session replays against self-reported trust." A papercut that becomes a study reads as a daily user and a researcher at once.
Do not fake a take you do not hold. Developers are quick to notice one, and so are interviewers. If you have not used a surface deeply, say what you observed and frame the rest as a hypothesis you want to test. Honest curiosity grounded in some real use survives; a confident wrong claim about the product costs you credibility.