7 inexcusable yet common UX gaffes that make you look like a total amateur.

Published in

UX Planet

9 min readApr 20, 2018

Rather than focusing on the specific blunders of certain technology products, this week, I have come up with 7 more common design patterns that just plain suck. There is never any excuse for any of them.

The thing is, if someone’s design includes one or more of these patterns, they’re probably not cut out for UX anyway, and this article will probably not reach them, or if it does, it won’t sink in. But I might as well try, right?

Margin hell

In addition to looking like it came from 1996, a website without margins is hard to read. I would say that the only remaining websites without margins are abandoned personal pages, but Wikipedia and Reddit — praised by hacks as “brutalist” — both do without and they are household names.

According to research, the ideal number of characters per line of text is 70. You might quibble that it is slightly more. Perhaps up to 90. But 320 characters? GTFO.

If your design does not include clean margins and readable line lengths, find another line of work.

Bottom line

Limit your paragraph margins to accommodate 70–90 characters per line.

Having only a native app with no web alternative

I read a book back in 2009 called the Big Switch, which proclaimed that the end of native apps (or as they were called in those days “computer programs”) was nigh, and in the future every app would reside on the web where it could be accessed by any internet-capable device regardless of OS.

Unfortunately for Windows, WebOS, and BlackBerry, that prediction didn’t quite come true. At least, not soon enough. Within two years of its publication, lazy yupsters were excreting mobile apps that did little more than access information from the internet, something that could easily be accomplished with a website. There was a time when you could not even view photos on Instagram without the mobile app, which means you could not view them at all on a computer.

The fact that so many new digital products were only available in native mobile form means that only those with the right device and OS could access them. The worth of an OS became almost entirely a function of how many apps were available. This led to a vicious cycle as also-ran platforms failed to attract developers as they would rather go where the users were… where the apps already were.

It’s hard to say if a bigger emphasis on the web would have saved every OS that was not iOS or Android, but even having a third option would be better than the stagnant duopoly we are left with today. For certain applications, natively installed software is still required or at least optimal. That might include programs that do (or should) not rely on data from the internet or nuanced interfaces that utilize a device’s sensors. But if your product is primarily information rather than functionality, there is no excuse not to put it on the web.

The future belongs to those who transcend the platform. It is good for the user, and it is good for the market. Already the industry is getting its comeuppance as “app fatigue” has set in, and users have stopped installing new apps, and started deleting them instead. I can’t say I didn’t predict this.

Bottom line

Wherever possible, design to be independent of platform.

Requiring a user name to log in

When people sign up for products, they usually use the same e-mail address to create their account. This makes logging in simple. Besides their password, they only have to remember their e-mail which is a single, frequently-accessed piece of information. There is no danger of the address not being available since it belongs to them, so they can always use that same address every time. It is one less thing to remember for all the different sites and apps they have accounts for.

Why, then, would a product require you to log in with a user name? User names are not always available. Somebody might have gotten to “FreddieJones69” before you could, meaning you’ll have to create a new piece of information to remember. You’ll accumulate several more user names to manage and you’ll start forgetting which one goes with which sites. The result is that, to save on cognitive burden, the user will just start using the same password everywhere they go instead, which compromises their digital security.

What really makes this unforgivable is that most of these sites don’t even have a reason for a user name. The whole purpose of user names is for public profiles, so people can go by online aliases instead of their real name. And yet many sites put them there literally for the sole purpose of adding complexity for the user — or perhaps because the designer is an incompetent third-rate plug.

Bottom line

If you collect the user’s e-mail, let them log in with their e-mail.

Stupid password requirements

Speaking of things that cause people to use the same password over and over again, how about forcing them to come up with a finger gymnastics password whose anal-retentive character requirements have zero in common with the way people normally type.

If you haven’t gotten the memo, passwords with funny characters are not inherently safer than those without. As XKCD has pointed out, the password “Tr0ub4dor” will take a brute-force hacker 3 days to crack at 1000 attempts per second, while “correcthorsebatterystaple” would take that same hacker 550 years. So if you think your cute little requirements are making your site and your users safer, then you’re clueless.

There are plenty of good reasons people hate these passwords. People don’t insert capital letters, numbers, or random symbols into the middle of words. It isn’t something that our muscle memory is prepared for. If you find yourself making a lot of errors when you type these passwords, or having to type them slowly, that’s normal. Your fingers are used to typing human language.

Also, have you ever tried typing one of these passwords on a small touchscreen keyboard? You have to switch between three character sets. If your app does not keep you logged in, that’s going to get annoying fast.

One result of this design is that users will just default to a seemingly “secure” password, and then reuse it everywhere so they can train their fingers to type it quickly. If that doesn’t bother you, how about the prospect of losing a customer? I have abandoned a sign-up process on more than one occasion because it had obnoxious password requirements. The funny thing is that I have seen the dumbest requirements on the most frivolous sites. If your database doesn’t have people’s financial information, nobody wants to hack it.

Bottom line

The only password requirement you need is a minimum length one. Require 12 characters and call it good.

Requiring internet connection for offline functionality

I brought this up in the Juicero article, but it needs to be repeated. Over and over. Until everyone gets the message. The internet is there to provide you with information, and allow you to send information to others. It is not a tool for you to control people like a petty little wannabe megalomaniac.

There are so many products out there that force you to have an internet connection even though the product does not depend on it inherently. The Juicero is one of the most infamous, but the Thync device is another, forcing you to log in to an online account to use it, even though the device has nothing to do with the internet. The XBox One requires you to access the internet once daily because reasons.

Actually the only reason that companies do this is because they loathe the idea of private ownership by anyone except themselves. Companies have been using insidious design and legal buffoonery to erode private ownership for years. They have tried to prevent people from modifying the smartphones that they paid for and legally own. The eminently slimy Uber is even trying to prevent private citizens from owning self-driving cars. But the most common form of control is simply tethering the function of both software and hardware to the company’s servers.

Besides the fact that it represents an attempt to sublimate our economic system directly from capitalism to Soviet socialism, forcing internet connections on offline products is the bane of user experience. It adds an extra step in many cases, and an extra point of failure in all cases. Contrary to these companies’ fantasies, internet connections do go down, sometimes for extended periods of time. With cheap solar panels and Tesla’s Powerwall hitting the market, we can no longer assume that being without internet implies being without power, which means that people will expect to use their appliances even when local infrastructure has been compromised.

Need I even bring up the fact that connected devices are vulnerable to hackers? Perhaps someone wishes to sacrifice any potential benefits of internet connection in favor of the security of an air gap. That’s their prerogative, but you wouldn’t know that to hear from some of today’s jackass hipster CEOs.

Bottom line

Don’t require an internet connection to use a product that does not inherently rely on the internet. That means pretty much all hardware, and a lot of software.

Slideshow douchebaggery

If you lay out your content as a slideshow, without giving users the option to view it all on a single page, just so you can impose more ads on them, forget being fired from your job. You should be neutered with a claw hammer. You have no place in modern civilization, let alone in the technology industry.

Do I really need to explain this?

Besides the obvious fact that spreading your content across several pages forces the user to load more, causing more delays as they wait for the content to download amid all of the extra ads and Taboola clickbait that go with it, slideshows make it impossible for people to scan the content to see if it’s even worth reading in the first place. Usually it isn’t, but those shameless titles, the digital equivalent of the smell of McDonald’s fries, pull you in anyway. Usually by the end, you feel even worse than if you had spent the preceding five minutes shoving McRibs down your throat.

Bottom line

Load all the content on a single page by default. People scroll. PEOPLE FUCKING SCROLL.

Pie charts

I’m absolutely stunned at the number of “experienced” UX designers who plop pie charts into their dashboards. I expect that, by a certain point in your career, you have read certain books and articles that teach you crucial lessons about design. One of those articles is Save the Pies for Dessert (PDF) by Stephen Few. He does as good a job as anyone out there explaining why pie charts and their cousins, the donut charts, suck. The Cliff’s Notes version is that they’re hard to read. The article isn’t. Read it.

If a designer is informed about pie charts and adds them anyway, I can only assume it means they are too weak and subservient to resist pressure from a higher-up to put one in, because that’s another major cause of pie charts. Learn to stand up for your work, be persistent in your stance, and educate decision makers in the principles of good design. If you can’t do that, don’t be a designer.