Don’t you get frustrated when a page takes too long to load, or the navigation seems confusing while shopping from an online store or using a new app? If so, you may just stop using that platform altogether.
To ensure your customers don’t face the same problem, you must identify and address UX design challenges. You may have put effort into the design, but you may skip some gaps. Plus, a Forrester report noted that companies that follow top UX design practices scale 2x more than the industry benchmarks.
Now, while there are some common UX problems to address, you will find some unique to your business.
So, how do you identify and resolve them? Let’s find out.
7 ways to identify and solve UX design challenges
Here are the top 7 ways to identify and solve UX design challenges:
- Deep-dive into user workflows
The user may have figured out a workaround to avoid the usability problem, and, thus, it skipped your notice. However, these small bottlenecks can create significant frustration over time.
Examining user workflow in-depth reveals how the user actually interacts with your system. It pinpoints any underlying problems they might face and how much it impacts their interaction with your platform.
Since complex task environments have multiple steps and processes, it’s quite difficult to notice UX issues from the surface. So, first, you must study user task flows in complex environments. It shows how users actually perform tasks, not how you think they do. It points out potential workarounds, seemingly small inefficiencies, and behaviours that cause frustration in the long run.
Let’s say you offer a project management platform. To assign tasks on your app, users scroll through hundreds of names from the dropdown menu, select the right teammate, and then assign tasks. To avoid such difficulty, the team just uses an Excel sheet and copies/pastes the entries in your platform at the end of the day.
With time, users will start looking for an app with a search button and stop using yours. However, running task flow analysis in complex environments will pinpoint this issue early. You can introduce a search button and a quick assign and bulk assign feature to address this problem.
Different users have unique needs and interact with your system differently, even when using the same feature on your platform. To smoothen your UX, you must focus on those specific contexts and goals and adjust UX accordingly.
You can run a survey with questions like, “What is your end goal when you are using (a specific) feature?” Consider their time constraints and other tools they rely on. Then adjust UX elements that balance most of those requirements. Additionally, wireframe examples can help visualize these adjustments and ensure they meet user needs effectively.
Want to understand user workflows accurately? You can use Loop 11’s online usability tests.
Here, you can run remote usability tests in moderated and unmoderated environments. It lets you identify and address even the subtlest UX issues, understand their real-world implications, and create a more satisfying user experience.
- Map out the user journey
Mapping the user journey lays down how a user moves through your product from start to finish; since you can see the entire experience, highlighting frictions and pain points contextually becomes easier.
While journey mapping, you should break down multi-step processes into stages. List down the user’s actions, goals, and outcomes they expect. Once you do that for each stage, put it together as a flowchart according to their sequence. Now, you have a comprehensive map of a specific user journey.
Now, look for delays and repeated actions. These can indicate that the user is confused about the next action. Identify unnecessary steps and gaps in navigation. For example, a user may head to the checkout page but delay choosing the payment method. This can imply that you don’t have their desired payment channel.
To identify these issues accurately, use advanced journey mapping tools. These let you create detailed user personas, leverage clickstream analysis, and heat mapping, and get a holistic view of each touchpoint.
For example, Loop11 offers True Intent Studies where you can:
- Run click-through testing to identify frictions in predefined paths.
- Monitor user’s click patterns to pinpoint popular paths, get user journey insights, and optimize navigational flow and visual hierarchy.
- Visualize user interactions on different devices and access aggregated data to identify behavior patterns and optimize important elements.
- Test your designs with edge cases
An edge case is an unusual situation occurring when a system works outside its usual parameters. Testing your UX designs with edge cases can expose flaws that may not appear during normal use. It shows how your system behaves under extreme conditions and complicated workflows, letting you address even the finest UX flaws.
The result? You create a UX that performs impressively in different contexts for a wide user range.
You can include different contexts into user personas for more detailed insights. Cover users from diverse backgrounds, elderly users, and people with disabilities. The more diverse your testing scenarios are, the more conclusively you can identify UX challenges in your system.
Find answers to questions like:
- Does it cater properly to non-western settings?
- Are your system’s visual cues and navigation intuitive enough for users from different cultures?
Test scenarios where users are in a rush or are multitasking. See how your system behaves with a slow internet connection. You should also examine your UX in older devices and different screen sizes — and Loop11’s mobile and tablet testing feature can help you with that.
Here, you can conduct UX testing for phones, desktops, and tablets. Loop11 will generate a unified report with video and audio recordings. You can access quantitative and qualitative insights surveys, task success, clickstreams, and heatmaps.
- Embrace accessibility in design
An inclusive UX design shows your commitment to providing a complete, enjoyable, and fruitful experience to all your users, regardless of their backgrounds, identities, or disabilities. A more accessible design ensures compliance, enhances brand loyalty, and boosts a positive reputation.
According to WHO data, 1 out of 6 people live with significant disability.
So, keep the limitations neurodiverse and disabled users face while designing your UX. Ensure the language is simple to improve readability. To cater to users with color blindness, avoid using red-green or blue-purple color palettes.
If you have any videos on your web pages, add subtitles to them. Your web pages should also support zooming in without losing its resolution.
You can include assistive technology like screen readers in your UX. Consider applying ARIA roles and semantic HTML so screen readers work more accurately.
To identify inclusivity gaps in your UX design, you can conduct moderated usability tests with Loop11. Here, you can observe user interactions and examine their frustrations with your UX in real time. You can record and revisit the sessions and promptly address accessibility-related UX gaps.
- Prioritize simplicity and clarity
Just because your platform is feature-rich doesn’t mean it must have a steep learning curve. Simplicity is the key to a seamless and delightful UX. From the first interaction to the last, the user should have complete clarity about the next steps and how they can complete the task successfully.
Focus on the smaller details like micro-interactions to improve usability. Add progress bars to motivate users to complete a task. You can add tooltips to help them discover new features on your platform. Whenever a user completes a task, show a celebratory GIF or animation.
These elements may seem small. But they go a long way to keep users engaged for longer.
UX designers often make the mistake of adding multiple alternatives to a single path. It can confuse the user and make your design look clunky. Instead, provide one clear and logical path. Add progress indicators to let users know what stage they are in and what action is next.
To ensure the navigation flows in your UX resonate with the users, run A/B tests between different path versions with Loop11. You can compare responses to each variation and deploy the most suitable one to avoid potential friction.
- Address collaboration gaps early
UX issues often happen due to collaboration inefficiencies between developers, product designers, graphic designers, and UX designers. To avoid this, gaps should be addressed early in the development process.
Use a collaboration platform like Slack where the team can discuss their vision and align strategies. Set up design principles and goals to keep efforts unified. Encourage team members to address constraints during handoffs to avoid surprises. Ensure to capture detailed notes using an AI meeting assistant to document design decisions for ongoing team alignment.
We recommend creating a shared designer-developer framework. Store UX assets in centralized locations like Figma (for design elements), Asana (for task and KPI tracking), and Notion (for documents).
That way, everyone can check on the progress and stay on the same page. Designers should collaborate with developers about each stage of UX design to ensure practicality.
- Benchmark against competitor experiences
Users come to your app with certain expectations and familiarity. To cater to that, you must be fluent in industry norms and what your competitors offer. The solution? Competitor analysis.
For example, your competitor analysis revealed that target users are familiar with a hamburger menu. Implementing that in your platform will make your UX more intuitive.
Plus, benchmarking against competitors can help you understand best practices and spot and resolve usability gaps in your existing design. You can use SE Ranking to get comprehensive insights into your competitors’ strategies, including their SEO and PPC data, and see their dynamics.
Running heuristic evaluations of competitors is a good approach here. This lets you see where your competitors fall short and how you can address them with your UX.
You can learn from what works and what doesn’t and ensure optimum user satisfaction from the very start. Now compare your UX with the findings to see where you are lacking and address these gaps.
Loop11 offers a UX Benchmarking feature where you can run user studies on your and competitor’s websites, address gaps, and test demands before launching.
Conclusion
Want to delight and retain users consistently? Examining and refining your UX according to changing industry norms, feedback, and usability insights.
Understand the user’s motive and map their journey to identify even the littlest of frustrations. They can snowball over time and cause low adaptability and churn. Test your UX in complex scenarios and fill gaps to make it more inclusive. Collaborate with your team thoroughly to work toward a shared vision. Finally, run competitor analysis to stay ahead of the curve.
- 7 Strategies for Identifying and Solving UX Design Challenges - February 25, 2025
- How to Enhance UX by Incorporating Customer Feedback Insights - January 7, 2025
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