UX fail: Are you designing for yourself or your users?

14 May

One of the biggest mistakes in UX? Designing based on assumptions rather than real user behaviour. It’s easy to think, “This makes sense to me, so it must make sense to everyone.” But here’s the thing—you are not your user.

🚨 Common traps designers fall into:
❌ Using jargon because you understand it
❌ Assuming users take the “ideal” journey through an interface
❌ Prioritising aesthetics over functionality
❌ Being too close to a product (you know what happens next)

💡 Actionable tip: Test with real users early and often, run sessions where you can watch how they interact.

Watch where they struggle (without leading them)
Ask open-ended questions like “What do you expect this button to do?”
Be ready to scrap your brilliant idea if it doesn’t serve the user.
Look for the non-verbal indicators, long hovers over a section, pressing on something that has no action, etc.
Understand that the buyer isn’t necessarily the user. What works for marketing, doesn’t always work for your users.
If you don’t have access to real users, test with people who don’t know the product or use heatmaps – https://clarity.microsoft.com is free and pretty easy to use.

Great UX isn’t about what you think works—it’s about what actually works for the people using it.

Designed for Humans is here to make your UX resonate and work for real humans.

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