AUTHOR ・SPEAKER ・ UX RESEARCHER
Victor Yocco, PhD
Applying psychology to AI design. Author of the forthcoming Designing Agentic AI Experiences — coming August 2026
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Books
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The Resilient Enterprise
Wiley · 2027 (Pre-order)
How leaders can deploy AI that strengthens employee competence instead of eroding it, with practical design patterns to counter AI-driven skill atrophy.
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The Persuasive Agent
Apress · 2026
The missing manual for building AI agents users can trust, applying proven principles of persuasion and communication to agentic AI design.
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Designing Agentic AI Experiences
CRC Press · 2026
A playbook for researching, designing, and evaluating AI that plans and acts on users' behalf, where trust, delegation, and control come first.
Save 20% at Routledge with code 26ESA4 (through Mar 31, 2027). Also on Amazon.
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Design for the Mind
Manning · 2016
Seven psychological principles of persuasive design — a practical behavioral toolkit for building digital products that move people to action.
Selected Writing
Recent articles on AI design, UX research, and the psychology of human-AI interaction
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Smashing Magazine
Designing for Agentic AI: Practical UX Patterns for Control, Consent, and Accountability
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Smashing Magazine
Beyond Generative: The Rise of Agentic AI and User-Centric Design
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UXMatters
How Agentic AI Reimagines User Journeys: A Psychological Framework
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Smashing Magazine
Trust as the Invisible UI for AI
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Smashing Magazine
The Wizard of Oz Method for Agentic AI Research
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Smashing Magazine
The Human Element: Using Research and Psychology to Elevate Data Storytelling
Speaking & Workshops
Designing for Delegation: What Changes When AI Acts on Its Own
A research-grounded exploration of why trust, not usability, is the core design challenge for agentic AI systems, and what UX teams need to do differently.
The Psychology of Generative UI: Adapting Without Disorienting
What happens to mental models, cognitive load, and perceived control when the interface keeps changing? Five design principles for building AI-generated interfaces users can trust.
About Victor
Victor Yocco is a UX researcher at ServiceNow, where he leads research on agentic AI products for enterprise customers. He holds a PhD from The Ohio State University with a focus on psychology and communication, and has over 15 years of experience helping organizations build products that align with how people actually think and behave. He is the author of Design for the Mind (Manning, 2016) and the forthcoming Designing Agentic AI Experiences (Taylor & Francis, 2026). Victor writes regularly for Smashing Magazine, UXmatters, and A List Apart, and speaks at conferences on the intersection of psychology, UX research, and AI design.
