UX is like diet and exercise — essential, yet easily ignored
In our quest for success, we chase quick fixes — whether through drugs or technology — gaining convenience but risking consequences.
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Everyone knows that diet and exercise are fundamental for good health. People understand that eating well and staying active lead to a longer, healthier life. Yet, despite this knowledge, most people struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The reasons vary — some lack discipline, others get discouraged by slow progress, and many are simply overwhelmed by the effort required.
Many businesses treat user experience (UX) the same way. They recognize that great UX leads to better customer satisfaction, stronger brand loyalty, and even increased revenue. But when it comes time to invest, UX often falls by the wayside, sacrificed for immediate profits, tight deadlines, or the belief that “it’s good enough.”
Why diets fail — and UX does too
The struggle with dieting isn’t about a lack of knowledge. People know that eating whole foods and exercising work. The real challenge is that results take time.
A single bad meal doesn’t cause weight gain overnight, just as a bad UX decision doesn’t immediately sink a product. The impact accumulates until the damage is undeniable.
True UX success isn’t about tweaking a few buttons or running a single usability test — it’s a continuous process of research, iteration, and refinement. But businesses, like dieters, are impatient. When UX doesn’t deliver instant results, it’s often dismissed.
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Take Microsoft’s Ribbon interface in Office 2007. It replaced traditional menus with a tabbed design meant to make features easier to find. At first, users — including Microsoft employees — hated it. It felt confusing and unnecessary. But over time, people adapted, and it actually made Office more efficient. Today, it’s a standard design in Microsoft products.
Just like in dieting, impatience in UX can make us overlook what’s ultimately good for us. When results aren’t immediate, we risk abandoning meaningful improvements before they have a chance to work.
The one-size-fits-all myth
Health challenges are made harder by a market flooded with diet and exercise trends — keto, vegan, HIIT, strength training — each claiming to be the best. But no single method works for everyone. Success depends on consistency, discipline, and understanding one’s own body.
UX is no different. There’s no universal method — lean UX, design thinking, double diamond, and agile all have their advocates — but real success comes from adapting to user needs, staying consistent with design principles, and understanding the problem you’re solving.
And just as diet and exercise alone aren’t always enough —with factors like metabolism, psychology, and environment playing a role — good UX isn’t just about adhering to strict methodologies or implementing structured interfaces and intuitive navigation.
Even well-researched, methodical approaches can fall short if they don’t account for unique user contexts, emerging behaviors, or unexpected challenges. True UX success requires adaptability, experimentation, and a willingness to rethink conventional wisdom.
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Google Glass is a prime example of how even well-researched UX can fail if it doesn’t account for real-world contexts. While the technology was cutting-edge, Google overlooked how users would feel wearing a head-mounted camera in public. Privacy concerns, unclear use cases, and social resistance led to its failure as a consumer product.
However, by adapting to user needs, Google repositioned Glass for enterprise settings, where hands-free functionality proved valuable. This shift highlights the importance of UX flexibility, real-world testing, and a willingness to rethink initial assumptions.
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The shortcut solution — how AI is becoming the “Ozempic” of UX
Recently, the weight loss industry has seen a radical shift. The most successful approach to losing weight isn’t stricter dieting or better exercise routines — it’s drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. These medications fundamentally alter how the body processes hunger, allowing people to lose weight without the grueling discipline of traditional dieting.
UX may be on the verge of its own shortcut moment. Artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and automation tools are transforming the way digital experiences are designed. Instead of extensive research phases and painstaking user testing, AI can analyze user behavior in real time, predict pain points, and automatically optimize interfaces and experiences.
Take e-commerce, for example. Instead of months of testing and user research, AI can instantly tweak checkout flows, optimize layouts, and personalize experiences. Just like Ozempic simplifies weight loss, AI is streamlining UX.
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For example, Dynamic Yield (owned by Mastercard) leverages advanced deep learning algorithms, originally developed for McDonald’s, to continuously test and optimize digital menu boards.
These AI-driven recommendations enhance the “Recommended Items” and “Suggestive Sell” sections in real time, adapting to customer preferences, time of day, and purchasing patterns for a more personalized experience.
As AI takes on more of the heavy lifting, businesses that once struggled to prioritize UX may now embrace it — not out of newfound discipline, but because AI reduces the effort required.
But these shortcuts come with their own pitfalls.
The hidden costs of shortcuts
Shortcuts are seductive, but they come with trade-offs. Weight loss drugs, while effective, and necessary for some, don’t teach better eating habits or the importance of long-term health. Some even experience side effects, and the weight often returns once they stop taking the medication.
In UX, AI-driven tools can be transformative, but they aren’t perfect. Automated systems optimize based on patterns and data, but they lack the human touch. They can predict behavior, but they don’t understand emotion.
A purely AI-driven UX strategy risks prioritizing engagement over ethical design, efficiency over genuine delight, and metrics over meaningful experiences.
There’s also the danger of over-reliance. Just as people who depend entirely on weight loss drugs may struggle once they stop, businesses that lean too heavily on AI may lose sight of the deeper principles of human-centered design.
A prime example of a failed AI strategy is McDonald’s AI-powered drive-thru system, which relied on voice recognition for order-taking. This system was separate from the previously mentioned Dynamic Yield AI.
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Partnering with IBM in 2021, McDonald’s aimed to streamline the efficiency of drive-thru transactions, but the AI had an 85% accuracy rate, meaning it misinterpreted about one in five orders. Viral videos from 2023 highlighted errors, such as the system adding random items to orders, leading to frequent employee intervention and slowing service rather than improving it.
Due to these issues, McDonald’s removed the system from over 100 locations in June 2024, showing the risks of over-relying on AI without a solid backup plan.
The future Is enhancement, not replacement
The evolution of weight management isn’t just about medication — it’s about combining medical breakthroughs with sustainable lifestyle changes. Similarly, AI isn’t here to replace UX designers but to enhance their creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making rather than dictate the entire design process.
AI can handle tedious, repetitive tasks like generating wireframes, analyzing user behavior, and optimizing layouts based on data. However, it lacks empathy, intuition, and the ability to understand cultural context or human emotions — all essential for creating meaningful user experiences.
The businesses that succeed won’t be the ones blindly following AI-generated designs, but those that leverage AI as a tool to support human expertise — allowing designers to focus on strategy, innovation, and refining the nuances AI can’t grasp.
Just as lasting health improvements require both medication and behavior changes, great UX will come from blending AI’s efficiency with human insight, creativity, and ethical judgment. In the end, there’s no true shortcut to exceptional UX — just smarter, more effective ways to achieve it.
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UX design is like diet and exercise — essential, yet easily ignored was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
