#103 UX in the Age of Overwhelm – Are We Designing for Exhausted Users?
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Welcome to the future of UX, the podcast where we explore the trends, the challenges and ethical dilemmas shaping the future of design. I'm Marisa Reiners and in each episode we dive into the intersection of UX, technology and also human behavior and the future so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Today's topic is one that affects every single one of us, whether we realize it or not.

Let's start with a big question: Are we designing for users who are already exhausted? Think about it. We wake up and immediately check our phones. We spend hours switching between apps, notifications and never-ending feeds. Our brains are constantly processing information. And yet we struggle to focus for more than a few minutes. The big question:

If everyone is burned out already, should you acts be about doing less, not more?

In this episode, we will explore: How digital fatigue is changing user behavior Why attention spans are shrinking and what it means for design The dark side of dopamine-driven UX Infinite scroll notifications and engagement hacks And the ethical dilemma: Should UX designers optimize for "well-being" instead of "engagement"? And here is a little bit more of an extreme question:

What if designers were rewarded for reducing screen time instead of increasing engagement? Let's get into it. Picture this: It's 11pm, you open your phone to check one quick notification that you got and 30 minutes later you are still scrolling through news, social media and random videos on TikTok. You feel drained but you can't stop.

Why? Because these platforms are designed to keep you hooked. The science behind the digital fatigue: Your brains are constantly overstimulated. Here's another notification: Someone liked your Instagram image. Someone sent you an email. This leads to mental exhaustion. The average person checks their phone 96 times a day.

And the more choices we have, the harder it is to focus and make decisions. For me, to be completely honest, I have a screen time between like three and four hours each day. I need to say that I'm also working with my phone. So I'm also using this to be on Instagram, to share content, to share stories, interact with people. I'm also using this for work. But this is still a lot of time. Do you think like four hours?

You know, you sleep eight, nine hours, then you work eight hours and then still another four hours. That's crazy. An interesting example as far as the Netflix autoplay feature. Ever wonder why episodes start playing automatically? It's not about convenience. It's about reducing friction to keep watching. The key takeaway is digital products are designed for engagement, for conversion.

But that comes at a cost. Our energy, our focus and the mental well-being. We hear it all the time. People have the attention span of a goldfish. And the reality actually is that people aren't losing attention. They are just losing patience. And bad UX forces people to multitask, leading to destruction. We switch between apps and tasks every 47 seconds on average.

So I think one example of where it gets really obvious for me is especially when I work and switch between different working tools between Slack and email and Zoom and any project management tools like Jira or Monday. They are all demanding attention at once. The result is that there's this constant context switching, which leads to mental fatigue. So what does this mean for your ex?

Most of the times, users are not craving for more features, but they actually want simpler and clearer experiences. So when you're thinking about a new feature, about improving a product, think less about what could be another feature to add, but more about how could we reduce this cognitive load, not add to it.

So a mini, mini takeaway for you already is good UX should make decisions easier and not harder. I know that's easier said than done, but sometimes it helps us to take one step back and think, how can we simplify that for the user? And not how can we add information? So question for you. Have you ever noticed how pulling to refresh feels like a slot machine you're gambling in Las Vegas?

Or these red notification badges trigger instant urgency. Or even the infinite scroll keep you engaged longer than you planned, especially on TikTok, on Instagram. These designs trigger the dopamine release, making apps addictive. The more time we spend, the more data is collected. So better for the companies, better for Meta, for example, for TikTok.

which means higher profits for their companies. Also, the more time you spend, the more ads they can place, the more ads you watch. But engagement is not user well-being. Another really interesting example is the Facebook like button. When Facebook introduced the like button, it was meant to be just a fun interaction, but instead it turned into a validation-seeking habit affecting mental health.

Some of you might have watched the Digital Dilemma or the Social Dilemma on Netflix. If you haven't, feel free to do that. I'm trying to link it in the show notes so you can have a look. It's super interesting because in this documentary on Netflix, designers who started with the infinite scroll on Instagram or with the Facebook like button shared their experience about how it all started and now how they feel about it.

the long-term effects that social media causes for many, many people all around the world, you know, thinking about burnout and depression and anxiety. So all the negative impact of that. Another wonderful resource that I would love to share with you is the book Hooked from Nir Eyal. It's a super interesting book that uncovers the psychological aspects of this hook model.

So how people get triggered by, you know, like the dopamine crush and then they want more and they're craving for this affection. They already invested something in the platform and they're coming back. So I highly recommend to check out the book. So should UX be about doing less and not more? There is a big trend, which is the rise of minimalistic or slow UX. Some companies are already rethinking UX, you know, in a whole.

The Apple's focus mode, for example, is another interesting feature or way to help users block notifications and regain control. For example, when you have a meeting scheduled in your Apple calendar, it automatically asks you to basically block all notifications while you're in that meeting. Super helpful. Or Instagram's take a break feature. It prompts users to log off after extended scrolling.

or the Google Digital Wellbeing attracts screen time and app usage. Although these features exist, users have to activate them. And it's nice that these companies worked on these features, but the platforms still make money from engagement. So there's little incentive to actually reduce it.

And I'm wondering what if your ex-designers were rewarded for reducing screen time instead of increasing engagement? Less is more.

I think when we are designing products for the future, UX should focus on helping users achieve their goals rather quickly and not just keeping them engaged in the long term. And AI can definitely help by automating some of the repetitive tasks that a user is doing over and over by completing tasks for them quicker, basically.

UX is not just about usability, it's about mental well-being, about emotional design, about empathy, about understanding the user's intent. My question to you is: Should UX designers prioritize reducing screen time or is engagement still the most important metric? Please share that in the comments here underneath this podcast episode. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you so much for listening. If you want to join the conversation, you can follow me on Instagram at ux.patricia and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also follow the podcast on LinkedIn, Future of UX Podcast, also on Instagram, where we share news and updates about the different episodes.

And the big goal also of this podcast, of this community, of the people who are listening is to think together about how to reshape the future of UX together. So thank you so much for being a part of this amazing community. Thank you so much for being a designer who thinks about the future, who wants to design basically a better experience for all of us. And thank you so much for listening, I would say.

See you in the next episode and hear you in the future.