Every product team has a version of something that never made it into the world. Sometimes it survives as an old prototype, a forgotten Figma file, a presentation deck, or a half-erased sketch on a whiteboard. It is tempting to think of those abandoned concepts as failures, but that is not always true. Some are technically sound, visually refined, thoroughly researched, and almost impossible to criticise. And yet, despite doing nearly everything right, they still never become real products.
I once worked on one of those designs. It was a small countertop kitchen appliance intended to improve a familiar everyday task, and for a while we believed we had created something exceptional. The engineering was reliable, the interface was simple, and the physical design felt polished without becoming excessive. User testing was overwhelmingly positive, and participants understood the product almost immediately. From every conventional perspective, it appeared ready to ship.
The Trap of Designing Something Too Perfect
On paper, the product seemed almost flawless. Every interaction had been simplified, every control had been carefully placed, and every unnecessary step had been removed. Users rarely made mistakes, the feedback system was clear, and the appliance behaved exactly as expected. The design team had achieved many of the things we are normally taught to pursue: clarity, efficiency, consistency, and ease of use.
The problem only became visible much later. In our effort to remove friction, we had also removed nearly every opportunity for the user to develop a personal relationship with the product. There was nothing to discover, very little to learn, and almost no sense of progression from beginner to experienced user. The appliance worked so smoothly that the user barely needed to think about it, which initially sounded like a success. Over time, however, we realised that this absence of involvement was also what made the experience feel strangely empty.
The product did not frustrate anyone, but it did not invite anyone in either. It performed the task and then disappeared into the background, leaving no room for habit, preference, mastery, or personality. The user could operate it perfectly from the first attempt, but there was very little reason to feel attached to it. We had designed a remarkably efficient tool, but we had not created something people were likely to care about.
The One Piece of Feedback That Changed the Project
The comment that eventually changed our view came from a user who had completed every task exactly as intended. She had no trouble understanding the controls, made no significant mistakes, and gave the product positive scores throughout the session. If we had looked only at the usability metrics, she would have been considered an ideal test participant.
When we asked for her overall impression, however, she said something unexpectedly simple: "It works well, but I don't feel like I'm using it." That sentence exposed a problem none of our quantitative measures had captured. She was not confused or dissatisfied, but she did not feel involved in the experience. The product was doing everything for her so effectively that she felt more like a passenger than a participant.
That observation forced us to rethink what we were actually designing. We had assumed that removing every possible obstacle would automatically create a better experience, but human satisfaction is not based entirely on efficiency. People often enjoy becoming familiar with a product, discovering small techniques, developing preferences, and gradually feeling more capable with it. When a design removes every opportunity for that relationship to develop, it can become impressive without becoming memorable.
Usability and Attachment Are Not the Same Thing
This is where designers can easily confuse usability with emotional connection. A product can be extremely easy to use and still fail to become something people value. Likewise, something can contain minor quirks or require a little learning and still become deeply loved because using it feels rewarding.
Many successful products give users a sense of ownership over the experience. They provide enough structure to prevent confusion but leave room for people to form routines, customise behaviour, or discover more efficient ways of working. This does not necessarily mean adding complexity for its own sake. It means recognising that some forms of effort create engagement rather than frustration.
There is a meaningful difference between unnecessary friction and useful participation. Unnecessary friction wastes time, causes mistakes, or forces users to solve problems the product should have solved for them. Useful participation gives users agency, encourages discovery, and allows them to feel that their decisions matter. Good design removes the first without accidentally eliminating the second.
Why Meaning Often Matters More Than Perfection
The experience taught me that perfection is not necessarily the most useful design goal. A flawless interaction can still feel forgettable if it gives the user nothing to connect with. What people remember is often not how technically efficient something was, but how it made them feel while using it.
This is why some imperfect products develop passionate communities while more polished alternatives quietly disappear. A camera with manual controls may demand more from its user than a fully automatic one, but that involvement can create a sense of craft. A mechanical keyboard may be unnecessary from a purely functional standpoint, yet people become attached to the way it feels, sounds, and responds. A software application may have a learning curve, but once users understand it, they can feel a sense of fluency that simpler tools never provide.
Meaning comes from participation, identity, and ownership. People like products that allow them to express preference, build skill, and develop familiarity over time. A product that never asks anything from the user can sometimes become easier to abandon because the user never invested anything in it.
The Risk of Removing Too Much Friction
Designers are often encouraged to reduce friction, and in most cases that is sensible advice. Long forms, unnecessary confirmation screens, confusing menus, repetitive actions, and ambiguous controls should absolutely be improved. The mistake is assuming that every moment requiring thought or involvement is automatically a defect.
Some friction can provide orientation. A brief setup process can help users understand how a product works. A small amount of configuration can create a sense that the product belongs to them. A feature that requires a little exploration can encourage curiosity and make the eventual discovery more satisfying.
The goal should therefore be intentional friction rather than zero friction. Designers need to ask whether an interaction is making the user's life harder for no reason or whether it is contributing to understanding, control, or mastery. Eliminating complexity indiscriminately can flatten the experience until very little remains beyond the task itself.
This Lesson Applies to Digital Products Too
The same problem appears constantly in software design. A team may streamline an application so aggressively that every workflow becomes automatic, predictive, and hidden. Initially, that can feel impressive because users complete tasks quickly, but eventually they may struggle to understand what the system is doing or feel that they have little control over it.
Automation is most satisfying when it supports the user rather than replacing their involvement entirely. A good interface might offer an intelligent default while still making the underlying choices visible. It may recommend the next step while allowing users to take another path. It can reduce repetitive work without preventing people from learning how the system functions.
This is particularly relevant as AI becomes more deeply integrated into creative and professional software. If an AI system performs every meaningful decision automatically, the user may achieve an excellent result while feeling surprisingly disconnected from it. The challenge for designers is not simply to automate as much as possible, but to determine which decisions people actually want to keep.
The Product Never Shipped, but the Lesson Did
Ultimately, the countertop appliance never went into production. It remains one of those designs preserved in old files and memories, a project that was successful by many traditional measures but failed to create enough of a reason for people to care. At the time, that felt frustrating because so much of the work was objectively strong.
Looking back, however, the project became more valuable as a lesson than it might have been as a product. It changed the questions I ask during design reviews. Instead of only asking whether users can complete the task, I also ask whether they feel involved in completing it. Instead of only looking for errors, I look for moments of ownership, curiosity, and satisfaction.
Those qualities are harder to measure, but that does not make them less important. A usability test can tell you whether someone successfully completed a workflow, yet it may not reveal whether they would choose to come back tomorrow. The gap between those two outcomes is where many nearly perfect products disappear.
Final Thoughts
The design that was almost perfect taught me that perfection and desirability are not the same thing. A product can be beautifully engineered, intuitive, efficient, and free of obvious problems while still failing to create any meaningful connection with its user. Removing every obstacle may improve usability, but removing every opportunity for participation can make the experience feel sterile.
Designers should certainly eliminate needless frustration, but they should also preserve room for discovery, choice, learning, and personal preference. People do not always want a product that becomes completely invisible. Sometimes they want to understand it, grow comfortable with it, and feel that they have become better at using it.
The product that lasts is rarely the one that simply performs perfectly. It is the one that gives users a reason to care about the experience and to feel that the experience belongs, at least partly, to them.
So the next time a design looks flawless on paper, it may be worth asking one more question: does the user merely know how to use it, or do they actually feel something while using it? The answer may determine whether the product becomes something people forget or something they remember.
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