Why most products today are meh

Lack of differentiation and over-optimization are running rampant. Here’s what designers can do about it.

Most experiences are average. Few are excellent.

Anyone today can build apps and websites.

On the one hand, that’s great. We have products for all kinds of problems. On the other hand, the experience leaves much to be desired.

The problems with most products today

Most products today are mediocre. I’m sure you feel this every day.

No matter how great AI and no-code tools are, they are far from replacing the strategic work that goes into creating targeted solutions. The kinds of solutions that turn users into die-hard fans.

Instead, most products today are either too generic or make people feel like dollar signs.

Complete lack of personality

“Vanilla ice cream never tastes bad and a plain black t-shirt will never go out of style. But a bold flavor or fashion-forward respectively they are not. You won’t attract any attention with this approach.” — How I choose Typefaces — Dan Mall

We’re surrounded by an ocean of vanilla ice cream, the most basic and undifferentiated flavor. Lots of products today use the same palettes, same fonts, and same style.

Just take a look at https://www.linears.art/, a site that gathers websites inspired by Linear’s landing page:

Same fonts, layouts, and palettes. linears.art

They’re like vanilla ice cream. And it’s not just the UI, I’ve seen many products become a collection of stitched-together, UX patterns without any consideration for the overall experience or the nuances of the user’s needs. These superficial solutions leave a lot of room for improvement.

[…] Tools have lowered the barrier, anyone can create. But when everyone uses the same tools, it’s vision and craft that make the difference. The demand for work that feels distinct, thoughtful, and human has never been higher. — Fons Mans

I’m a designer, and I care about design. Let me tell you what I think good design should be about.

Good design is about knowing the people you design for. What they like, what they want, what they need. Good design reflects the ethos of its market.

These “vanilla ice cream products”, however, are the embodiment of indecision, or worse, the lack of courage to precisely adapt themselves to their customers.

The cure for vanilla ice cream

You can design vanilla ice cream products and do okay. But if do your homework, you might learn that your customers like pistachio ice cream because it helps them sleep better at night, and you can whip out a killer pistachio ice cream that delivers at 2 AM, and your service will be a certified banger.

They’ll thank the universe for your existence.

Short-term, performance metrics

The other way in which most products miss the mark today is their fixation with short-term, short-sighted, performance metrics.

Picture this:

You visit a website, there’s a newsletter popup front and center and a cookie banner. You close both. There’s a hero with meaningless copy “Next-gen AI-powered productivity”. You ignore it and scroll down. A chatbot on the bottom-right corner named Greg greets you with a generic message. You close it and try to scroll more. You reluctantly sign up to try the product. Turns out it doesn’t do what you thought it did and the website isn’t clear at all. From that moment on, you will receive 3 daily emails as part of their drip campaign, even if you never want to use the product. You try to unsubscribe several times, but it never works. You go back on the website to try and ask them to remove you from their mailing list. The only form of contact is Greg, the bot. You engage Greg. It’s AI-powered, yet it doesn’t understand anything you say. You ask to speak with a human, you get a response from Greg. Turns out he’s a real boy. He says he removed you from the email list, the change will take 48 hours to be reflected. You thank Greg. 5 minutes later you get a satisfaction survey to rate Greg. He was nice so you fill it out. 30 days later you’re still getting their emails…

In which version of the multiverse does this wackadoodle make sense? How did we end up here?

I’ll tell you how: it’s an obsession with performance metrics.

You see, along the way, Greg’s company gathered some “juicy” data:

Their website copy and design are engaging, because you scrolled! Except you had to scroll because their dumb hero didn’t say anything useful.Their website conversion is high, because you signed up! Except you signed up to try and figure out whether the product solved your problem since you couldn’t figure that out by reading their ambiguous website.Their drip campaign is a hit, because no one unsubscribes! Except they literally can’t because the unsubscribe link is broken.Their bot is useful, because you engaged with it! Except you had no choice.Customer support solved your problem! Except they didn’t.

From a metrics perspective, this funnel is pure gold. From a user experience perspective, it’s an automated torture device called Greg.

[…] when we set one specific goal, people will tend to optimize for that objective regardless of the consequences. This leads to problems when we neglect other equally important aspects of a situation. — Unintended Consequences and Goodhart’s Law by Will Koehrsen

In other words, it’s never been easier to build systems that miss the forest for the trees. This obsession with tracking, measuring, and optimizing for conversion often builds twirling monstrosities that don’t care about their users. This is also known as the Goodhart’s law.

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure — Goodhart’s law

I can hear the marketeers: bUt oUr cOnVeRsIoN MeTrIcS ArE GrEaT AnD We dRiVe sAlEs!!!!

Yeah, but what about your brand’s reputation? What about building a sustainable business? Wouldn’t it be great to wow your customers so they tell their friends for free? Imagine a world in which they love your product so much they keep buying from you over and over.

Well, that sounds lovely, but marketing attribution is really hard to measure. So it’s much easier to stick to short-term numbers that we can brag about in front of execs rather than building a loyal user base:

Meet Product Owner Pat, who lives and breathes feature releases. The quarterly metric demands new features, so Pat ensures that they roll out a shiny new update every few weeks, whether the users want it or not. The problem? The product’s quality begins to falter as features get crammed in without proper testing or alignment with user needs. Bugs abound, and user satisfaction plummets — but hey, at least the feature release numbers look stellar. —The Metric Obsession by Meet Vekaria

The irony is that you can actually get a pulse on long-term engagement and brand reputation. You can actually ask to your customers and they’ll be happy to tell you what sucks about your product. Your customers would throw Greg under the bus.

What can designers do about all this?

A few things, actually.

First of all, understand the motivations behind these UX blunders. What’s the business hoping to get out of these superficial metrics? Is that drip campaign driving a large proportion of sales? Great, can we look at the whole campaign and try to make it less annoying? Some newsletters are actually valuable and entertaining to read and keep the audience warm and engaged. Can we aim for something better?

Second, and something I mention in almost every article: Know your users. What do their days look like? What annoys them? What are they trying to get done? This knowledge will build up your argumentative capacity to challenge poor design choices. But don’t be confrontational. Nobody likes a designer telling them what to do. Instead, use your knowledge about the customer to present enticing possibilities.

Third, be bold. The more you know your users, the more you’ll develop your sensitivity around their needs. This will give you the confidence to create designs that stray away from the average middle and towards the righteous lane. Don’t be a vanilla ice cream!

“When the decision-maker’s point of view on a product is ‘do whatever makes the number go up’ they are not only tracking trailing indicators, but they are not capable of saying no. And the ability to say “no, because this does not take us where we want to go” is the key to effective product decisions.”— Verschlimmbessern by Pavel Samsonov

If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. If you disagree with me, let me know in the comments, I’m always up for a good debate.

Talk soon.

Further reading

How I choose Typefaces — Dan MallExtreme focus on upselling — Juan J. RamirezVerschlimmbessern — Pavel SamsonovThe Metrics Obsession — Meet VekariaGoodhart’s lawUnintended Consequences and Goodhart’s Law — Will KoehrsenDigital attribution is dead! Les Binet tells us why marketers need econometrics in 2023 —Samuel Scott

Why most products today are meh was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.