Why Your App is “Good” But Still Gets Deleted
- Scott Ellis
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
We've Made It Usable. Now It’s Boring.
Every app today is "clean.""Intuitive.""User-friendly."
And yet... forgettable.
We’ve optimized the life out of our products.
You can thank the wave of “usability” worship for that. Designers treated Nielsen’s heuristics like commandments. We put affordances on pedestals. Rounded all the corners. Removed every ounce of friction.
But you know what else has zero friction?
A piece of paper. A calculator from 1997.The DMV line when no one shows up.
Just because it works doesn’t mean people want to use it.
We’ve built the equivalent of beige furniture for the digital age. Functional. Minimal. Lifeless.
Where’s the joy? Where’s the compulsion to come back? Where’s the “hell yeah”?
Usability Isn’t the Enemy. But It’s Not the Goal.
Don Norman cracked the code decades ago.
“Attractive things work better.”
He didn’t mean make it pretty. He meant make it visceral. Make it resonate. Design that bypasses logic and hits the bloodstream.
He laid it out in three layers:
Visceral – the instinctual whoa, this looks cool moment.
Behavioral – the this actually works confirmation.
Reflective – the this fits who I am connection.
Most designers get to step two and clock out.
But people? People buy into step three.Reflective design creates identity. Memory. Belonging.
Think Moleskine. Think the first iPhone. Think Notion, when you built your first dashboard and thought, “I could run my life in here.”
What the Best TED Talks Get Right
Let’s dig into the TED trenches. These folks aren’t just giving talks, they’re handing you the blueprint you’re ignoring.
~ Johannes Ippen – Humans, Not Users
He makes a brutal point:We’ve dehumanized design.
We say “user” to make personas sound objective, but what we really do is distance ourselves from the people we design for.
You don’t “optimize flows” for your mother. You don’t AB test your friend’s emotions.
Johannes says: drop the UX coldness. Design for the messiness of being human.That means emotion. That means unpredictability. That means risk.
~ Joe Gebbia – Designing for Trust
Joe didn’t design features.He designed feelings.
Think about how insane Airbnb’s early concept was:
“Stay at a stranger’s house. Pay them money. Hope they don’t murder you.”
And it worked.
Because the design made people feel safe, welcome, seen.From profile pictures to reviews, the product made you trust people you’d never met.
Design didn't just solve a problem. It rewired how humans relate to each other.
That’s emotional UX. And it’s criminally rare today.
Ask This: Would You Miss It If It Disappeared?
That’s the real test.
If your app vanished tomorrow, would anyone care?
Would they tweet about it?Would they feel incomplete?
Because that is what separates a product from a tool. Tools are replaceable.Great products become rituals.
Think:
Slack (before it got bloated)
Figma (for designers)
Duolingo (and that psychotic owl)
They all do something deeper than “function.” They entertain, challenge, delight, connect.
If you build something people feel, they’ll stay loyal even when it breaks.
Here’s How You Fix It
Alright, enough ranting. You want better design? Then you need to design for more than flowcharts.
1. Design for Desire
Don’t just solve problems, create cravings.
Why does Spotify Wrapped hit so hard? Because it’s yours. It taps identity.
Add moments people look forward to. Rituals. Rewards.
2. Design for Emotion
Add storytelling. Microcopy. Delightful animations.
Use sound, haptics, color, not to distract, but to evoke.
Give the product a voice. Let it have a personality.
3. Design for Meaning
Reflect the user’s values.
Let them build something of their own.
Make your product feel like a home, not a hotel.
You Can Keep Making Usable Sh*t. Or You Can Make Art.
Look, if you want to be another drone churning out usable, skimmable, tappable rectangles… go for it.
Plenty of jobs out there for that.
But if you want to make something people talk about over dinner?If you want someone to feel something when they open your app?
Then you’ve got to go deeper.More risk.More story.More soul.
Usable is the floor.
You’re here to build the f***ing ceiling.
Question for you: What’s one app you love not because you need it, but because you want it? Why?
Let’s build more of those.
#UX #UI #BoringDesign #tedtalk #JoeGebbia #JohannesIppen #DonNorman #designbetter #dobetterdesign #digitalmacgyver
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