Lack of differentiation and over-optimization are running rampant. Heres what designers can do aboutit.Most experiences are average. Few are excellent.Anyone today can build apps and websites.On the one hand, thats great. We have products for all kinds of problems. On the other hand, the experience leaves much to bedesired.The problems with most productstodayMost products today are mediocre. Im sure you feel this everyday.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-hardfans.Instead, most products today are either too generic or make people feel like dollarsigns.Complete lack of personalityVanilla 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 wont attract any attention with this approach.How I choose TypefacesDanMallWere 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 samestyle.Just take a look at https://www.linears.art/, a site that gathers websites inspired by Linears landingpage:Same fonts, layouts, and palettes. linears.artTheyre like vanilla ice cream. And its not just the UI, Ive seen many products become a collection of stitched-together, UX patterns without any consideration for the overall experience or the nuances of the users 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, its vision and craft that make the difference. The demand for work that feels distinct, thoughtful, and human has never been higher.FonsMansIm a designer, and I care about design. Let me tell you what I think good design should beabout.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 itsmarket.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 icecreamYou 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.Theyll thank the universe for your existence.Short-term, performance metricsThe 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, theres a newsletter popup front and center and a cookie banner. You close both. Theres 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 doesnt do what you thought it did and the website isnt 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. Its AI-powered, yet it doesnt understand anything you say. You ask to speak with a human, you get a response from Greg. Turns out hes 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 youre still getting theiremailsIn which version of the multiverse does this wackadoodle make sense? How did we end uphere?Ill tell you how: its an obsession with performance metrics.You see, along the way, Gregs company gathered some juicydata:Their website copy and design are engaging, because you scrolled! Except you had to scroll because their dumb hero didnt say anythinguseful.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 couldnt figure that out by reading their ambiguous website.Their drip campaign is a hit, because no one unsubscribes! Except they literally cant because the unsubscribe link isbroken.Their bot is useful, because you engaged with it! Except you had nochoice.Customer support solved your problem! Except theydidnt.From a metrics perspective, this funnel is pure gold. From a user experience perspective, its an automated torture device calledGreg.[] 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 Goodharts Law by WillKoehrsenIn other words, its 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 dont care about their users. This is also known as the Goodharts law.When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measureGoodharts lawI can hear the marketeers: bUt oUr cOnVeRsIoN MeTrIcS ArE GrEaT AnD We dRiVe sAlEs!!!!Yeah, but what about your brands reputation? What about building a sustainable business? Wouldnt 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 andover.Well, that sounds lovely, but marketing attribution is really hard to measure. So its much easier to stick to short-term numbers that we can brag about in front of execs rather than building a loyal userbase: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 products quality begins to falter as features get crammed in without proper testing or alignment with user needs. Bugs abound, and user satisfaction plummetsbut hey, at least the feature release numbers look stellar. The Metric Obsession by MeetVekariaThe irony is that you can actually get a pulse on long-term engagement and brand reputation. You can actually ask to your customers and theyll be happy to tell you what sucks about your product. Your customers would throw Greg under thebus.What can designers do about allthis?A few things, actually.First of all, understand the motivations behind these UX blunders. Whats 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 dont 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 youll 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. Dont be a vanilla icecream!When the decision-makers 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 PavelSamsonovIf you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. If you disagree with me, let me know in the comments, Im always up for a gooddebate.Talk soon.Further readingHow I choose TypefacesDanMallExtreme focus on upsellingJuan J.RamirezVerschlimmbessernPavelSamsonovThe Metrics ObsessionMeetVekariaGoodharts lawUnintended Consequences and Goodharts LawWillKoehrsenDigital attribution is dead! Les Binet tells us why marketers need econometrics in 2023 SamuelScottWhy 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.