State of Usability In 2023 — Smashing Magazine

Many projects start with assumptions. We assume that users understand hamburger icons and how mega menus work that they understand how to deal with disabled buttons; that they safely store passwords and access recovery keys — and are delighted when identifying crosswalks and fire hydrants.

Assumptions, however, are often wrong. People are very very good at finding loopholes and shortcuts. They are also incredibly good at bending the rules to make things work best for them. That’s why we end up with passwords placed on sticky notes and onboarding tutorials being notoriously skipped. If it happens, this shows up in many, very different ways.

Pssst! This article is part of our ongoing series on design patterns. It’s also a part of the 4-week live UX training and will be available in our 9h video course on UX as well.

User Frustrations In 2023

In this post I’ve put together a few personal ones observations from real usability testing on how people behave, what they do and what they don’t do on the web. Frankly, the results shouldn’t be very surprising to you, but once put together, they paint a quite astonishing picture.

Pop-ups and modals
Push notifications
Chat window pop-ups
Feedback pop-ups
Install app prompts
Importing contacts
Geolocation permissions
Access to camera/mic/photos
Demanding permissions on page load
“Turn off your ad-blocker!”
Auto-advancing carousels
App onboarding tutorials
Install your updates
2-Factor-Authentication
Email for for coupon sign-ups
Gender, age, phone input
Security questions
Slow parallax, slow transitions
Background video stalls and jitters
Flags used for language selector
Aggressive live validation
Reaching footer with infinite scroll
Birthday dropdown that starts in 2022
Filters freezing UI on every selection
Disabled buttons that doesn’t explain what’s wrong
Disabled copy-paste
Crosswalks and fire hydrants
GDPR cookie pop-up

The most important notion for me (and the most disappointing one) is that users in general don’t seem to trust websites. They are often seen as “hostile“, “unfriendly”, “busy”, “annoying” and “confusing”. That’s why the default attitude towards any website is pretty much the same: block everything!

That’s why pop-ups and modals are often dismissed instinctively. So are push notifications, chat window pop-ups, feedback pop-ups and install app prompts. The same also goes for importing contacts or granting access to geolocation, camera, microphone or photos.

The blocking happens before users even have a chance to read what they were asked about — and once the request has been denied, there is no way to restore it or open it later. The best way to deal with it is to always prefer a nonmodal dialogue, and also always explain why we need a permission before asking for it. Humbly and respectfully.

User Delighters in 2023

A common problem that users often experience is the lack of control. Not only do windows appear all-of-a-sudden requiring user’s immediate attention; users don’t feel that they can rely on the website and fully control their digital experience. This often reflects in words such as “fragile”, “broken”, “confusing”, “poorly done”, “not helpful” coming up.

Calm, fast, accessible experience
Large, legible text
Large checkboxes and radio buttons
Input boxes that look like input boxes
Clear focus/active states
Simple password requirements
Large, tappable areas
Helpful error messages
Error messages not covering text input
Error messages not appearing as toast messages
User input persisted on refresh
Drop-downs opening on tap/click
Easy undos, edits, cancellations
Pausing or auto-rotating carousels
Infinite scroll with a sticky footer
Reliable “Refresh” and “Back” buttons
Videos with playback speed options
Videos with a closed captioning option
Reliable browser’s auto-fill and password generation
Filters applied manuallywith the “Apply” button
Magic link sign-in experience

One of the things that surprised me was the notion of “calm experience” that came up frequently. What users seem to mean by that is a predictable, reliable design. A design where input boxes appear as input boxes, with large radio buttons and checkboxes, with simple password requirements and helpful error messages.

Wrapping Up

Of course, the observations above might not be quite right in your case. Enterprise environments, for example, are very different and can prompt a very different user behavior. However, these insights seem to be quite holistic, with many people behaving in a similar way when experiencing similar issues.

What’s really interesting to me is that while user frustrations have evolved and increased significantly over the years, the things that users love and appreciate haven’t changed at all. They probably won’t change in the future either, so focusing on them first might be just the right investment for every project in 2023.

When we talk about design trends in 2023perhaps it’s also a good opportunity to think about how we can create slightly calmer, more ethical and inclusive designs, perhaps even being a little bit drilling every now and again. Frankly, that might feel remarkably refreshing to users in a world that is too noisy, too busy and too exclusive too often.

(This article isn’t exhaustive by any means, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.)

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