Picture this: A friend told you about a new website where you can adopt a virtual pet.  But as you click and scroll, you can't help but feel lost in a maze of confusing menus, intrusive pop-ups, and slow-loading pages.  And that video that auto-played a barking dog? It nearly made you jump out of your seat!

If you’ve been on the internet in the last — well, ever — you’ll have experienced this at least once. But don’t let these problems happen on your site or app!

In the context of UX, pain points typically fall into one of four categories: Financial, Product, Process, and Support. All of these happen more frequently than they should, especially given the web is now celebrating its 30th birthday.

No, this category has nothing to do with users having issues withdrawing money from an online bank! Financial pain points are the kind that have to do with paywalls and premium services that shut users down unless they pay.

Common financial pain points

• Misleading premium content offers that trick users

• Hidden fees and charges

• Intrusive ads

• Subscriptions that are auto-renewing and difficult to cancel

2. Product

Product pain points are typically related to quality, something that prevents a user from completing their task.  Examples include pages that are really slow to load (or don’t load at all) or a site crashing halfway through the task.

Common product pain points:

• Slow performance

• Frequent errors or glitches

• A complex user interface

• Difficulty finding things

• Inconsistent design elements or interactions

• Poor accessibility

3. Process

Process pain points are generally related to customer journeys: how to get from point A to point B.  For example, maybe you received a promotional email with a code for 25% off your next order, but when you try to enter it, the code isn’t accepted.  That’s a blocker for the user, and may result in a lost customer.

Common process pain points

• Confusing navigation

• Complex user journeys or non-intuitive flows

• Lengthy forms

• Lack of progress indicators or confirmation messages

• Missing or confusing call-to-action buttons

• Poor error handling

4. Support

In a perfect world, users would be able to accomplish their tasks without needing any kind of assistance.  But we all know that’s not how things work in the real world.  So when users do need assistance, it should be easy to get to.  Yes, sometimes I truly just want a phone number to talk to a human in customer service; is that so much to ask?

Common support pain points

• Missing or inadequate FAQs

• Poor documentation

• Unclear contact information

• Lack of live support

• Lack of support for users with disabilities

• Long wait times for support

• Unhelpful automated responses (ChatGPT, this sounds like a job for you!)

Turn your pain points into business opportunities

So you know you have some of these common customer pain points on your website or app. YAY!

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the first word that came to mind, but if you can identify specific problems, then you can fix them.  Addressing pain points means your customers will get a smoother user experience, and that ultimately makes them more loyal to your brand or company.  You can also incorporate these learnings into future products to make them better from the get-go.

How to solve these UX pain points

I listed a lot of common problems above, and this blog would be quite lengthy if I addressed specifics on each one.  So let’s stick to some high-level techniques you can use to solve and avoid these pain points in the future.

1. Personas

Personas help to humanize software, letting you “put a face” to what you’re building.  You might have one persona or a handful, but they typically contain an overview of the user, such as their name, a picture, their background, demographic information, goals, and frustrations.  Designing with this “person” in mind will help keep your users front-and-center.

2. Seek user feedback

User feedback is one of the most important parts of user experience design.  Because after all, you are designing for users, and you should understand what they want and need.  You can collect feedback through surveys, interviews, up-voting software, or a digital suggestion box/contact form.

3. User journey mapping and interviews

A user journey map is a visualization of the path a user takes to accomplish some task, such as purchasing a product on a website.  It includes the scenario and expectations of the user, steps they would take, and, importantly, what they are thinking and feeling as they progress throughout the customer journey.  

You can use these in conjunction with interviews, asking open-ended questions to get a better sense of what’s happening inside their head.

4. Test, test, test!

It should go without saying, but you should be doing usability testing frequently with users as you design and build your website or app.  This could be in the form of wireframes (static rough sketches) or prototypes (more built out, with functioning behaviors, such as clicks or swipes to test out interaction design).  Let your users “have at ’em,” get feedback, and iterate.

5. Product data

As you’re doing testing, there are several ways to get tangible data on how users are using your site or app.  Leverage analytics, eye-tracking studies, heat maps, or even recorded screen captures to see what’s going on.  This will help you understand the pain points that come up and how you might address them.

6. Be transparent

If and when problems arise (and they will), be transparent with your users about them.  And, most importantly, let them know what you’re doing to address the issues.  Give an estimated completion date if possible.  This helps build trust and loyalty with your users.

Once you’re done, let people know what you did!

Okay. You’ve gone and fixed all the UX pain points (because you’re awesome, obviously), but your internal stakeholders (or your clients) need to know about your awesome work, how it impacts ROI, and why it helps meet business goals.  If you need some ideas on how to sell your value, then this post is for you (it focuses on job interviews, but you can apply it to so many other things).

Conclusion

That was a whirlwind tour of some of the most common UX pain points in web design today, and what you can do to solve and avoid them in the future.  But we can only do so much together here on paper.  If you liked this article, then you’ll love these other resources to continue your journey.

• User Experience Design Fundamentals

• User Experience Tips and Tricks for Developers

• Interaction Design: The Big Picture