Is great UX killing happiness?
Between delight and meaning in the digital age
The joy of messing up and starting over. Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Ever since I first read this phrase back in 2008, during my first year at university, I’ve been obsessed with the concept of happiness. For someone like me, who was always questioning where emotions and reactions came from — many of which felt unconscious or beyond my control — it was fascinating to think that every problem and need could be reduced to a single pursuit. Everything I did, and everything humans did, was motivated by the desire to be happy.
Of course, that formula had degrees of separation: many actions required multiple steps and conditions before they could result in happiness. But if, at the core, everything could be traced back to this one purpose, it became much easier for me to distinguish what was essential from what was trivial.
From Happiness to Usability
My obsession with happiness — both my own and that of others — eventually led me to change careers in 2021, after more than ten years working in technology projects.
Being close to the business side, I repeatedly saw how little empathy there was for the end user, and how many of the products we launched were either ignored or, worse, criticized and even hated. The most frustrating part was that many of these tools were internal systems, meaning I was complicit in implementing solutions that actually made my colleagues’ daily lives harder (we’ve all had that tool we’re forced to use at work — the one that isn’t intuitive and always crashes right before a deadline).
That was my turning point: I decided to dedicate myself fully to user experience design. My obsession with happiness turned into an obsession with usability and accessibility — with creating processes that were clear, seamless, and forgiving. Products that didn’t require a manual to get started, that offered smooth, precise interactions, and where errors could not only be corrected but often avoided altogether. In short, the foundation of any successful product or service today.
The Zero-Friction Generation
We’ve grown so accustomed to this level of excellence — instant responses, frictionless interfaces — that anything less feels inconceivable. We’ve become connoisseurs of experiences: it’s not enough for things to “just work”. We expect them to anticipate our needs, answer perfectly on the first try, and leverage all the data they gather from us to know us better than we know ourselves — while still respecting our privacy. We want it all.
Think about it: people who once waited 20 minutes for a PC to boot up and saved all their files on floppy disks now demand nothing short of perfection. And newer generations, raised in a context of zero friction, see any obstacle as an intolerable disruption.
Meanwhile, rates of depression and anxiety have surged. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 280 million people worldwide live with depression, and nearly 4% of the global population experiences an anxiety disorder. Perhaps this lack of friction — this over-optimization — has disconnected us from the real fabric of life, where obstacles are not exceptions but essential parts of existence. And in that gap, we face a crisis of meaning and purpose — yes, that same purpose I was once obsessed with: happiness.
This raised a painful question for me: had I failed as a professional? Was I complicit in this trap? Were my designs and my work actually taking people further away from what makes them truly happy?
I don’t mean intentionally adding friction — making products clunky or incomplete. What I mean is asking whether what I build contributes to happiness, or merely shortens the path between the user and the reward so much that the user no longer has to move, strive, or grow. Where do I place “the genuine” in a system engineered to have no errors?
Traces of Humanity
I don’t know if we’re heading toward a future where all products are predictive and require minimal user interaction. For now, there are still experiences where friction is unavoidable.
Think about ordering food delivery: the app interface is smooth — easy to browse, order, and pay. But behind the scenes, a human still has to pick up the meal, navigate traffic, and deliver it. The same is true when we take an Uber, book an Airbnb, or go on a Tinder date. As long as people are involved, there will always be unpredictability.
But what happens when artificial intelligence removes that human factor — when it generates information, content, or even ideas, with us reduced to passive prompters?
What if, instead of asking me what task I wanted next, ChatGPT asked me what I thought of its last response? Did it challenge my assumptions? Did I learn something new? Was I right or wrong, and in what ways?
Most users would probably dismiss such a version — no one wants to waste time reflecting. We go to these tools for quick, effortless answers. And that convenience benefits the companies behind them, because it keeps us engaged and always coming back with new questions. The smoother the process, the more delighted we feel — until even a two-second delay becomes intolerable and the bar gets raised yet again.
The only sleek perfection here is in the design of the Apple products. The rest, the real parts of life, are inevitably messy. Photo by Jesus Hilario H. on Unsplash