Simplifying User Interfaces for Digital Products

Digital Experience Optimization isn't just about tweaking your website. It's about transforming how users interact with your entire digital ecosystem. Helium 10, a software company for Amazon entrepreneurs, faced a common challenge: their platform offered powerful tools, but prospective users struggled to grasp the core benefits. Through a comprehensive audit and optimization program, The Good uncovered that those prospective users found the homepage too cluttered, tool names unclear, and a pricing structure that left them confused. But identifying problems is only half the battle. The real value comes from strategic solutions. We redesigned the homepage to showcase platform benefits rather than individual features. This simple shift increased free account signups by 4.75% and paid conversions by 5.51%. On the registration page, we added social proof, like quotes from current customers. This seemingly small change boosted paid conversions by 12%. Throughout the site, we improved navigation, clarified tool categorization, and refined pricing communication. Each adjustment was driven by user data and validated through rigorous A/B testing. The results speak for themselves. Helium 10 saw reduced bounce rates, increased registrations, and higher paid conversion rates across the board. Want to uncover insights that drive more signups for your software? By focusing on the user journey and aligning it with business goals, companies can unlock significant growth potential. The key is to approach optimization as an ongoing process, not a one-time project.

*Simplify your product design — borrow familiar patterns* Last week I wrote that simplicity is a competitive advantage. But what does it mean for a product to be simple? Simple products are immediately familiar and usable. When I pick up a knife or a cup, I never have to think to myself, “how do I use this?”. That sense of familiarity is what we wanted for WhatsApp too. We wanted to make sure our users wouldn’t feel like they needed to learn how to use the app, but could just start calling and messaging. We had to ask ourselves — what will make this product familiar to billions of very different people around the world? Well, the only thing we really knew about all those potential users is that they had a phone. So we matched the patterns of the phone’s operating system, because we knew the user would know them. If Android normally had an floating action button in the bottom right, that’s where WhatsApp would put its button. This meant WhatsApp would feel familiar even if you've never actually used the app before. We also used consistent patterns throughout the app. I’m not talking about anything fancy — just things like “triangle button = you’re going to send a message; arrow = not going to send yet.” That consistency quickly built a sense of predictability and control for users. Of course, this was really limiting in lots of ways! There were lots of interesting interaction patterns that we couldn’t use because they weren’t already intuitive to all our users. The question I always asked was “where would the user naturally put their thumb? Put the button there.” If you’re watching a Hotjar recording, you can see where someone pulls their mouse, or where someone’s eyes track in qualitative research. Users are telling us where they expect to find something — put the button there! For another industry example of how familiar patterns make hard things feel easy, think about all the new genAI chat bots. This is wildly complicated frontier technology. How is it possible that hundreds of millions of consumers could pick it up overnight? Because even though these AI systems are built on complex foundations, they borrow a messaging interface that we’ve all been using for decades. That familiar interface means that everyone can use this amazing tech without needing to learn anything new. One shortcut I always think of when designing a new product is: what other apps or physical products are my users likely to be using? Are there any patterns I can borrow from those to make a new product automatically intuitive? If a user normally swipes right to dismiss notifications, can swiping right dismiss new alerts inside my product instead of making the user find an “x” to tap on? Making these small gestures familiar can add up to making a whole product feel more simple and intuitive, instead of like yet another new thing to learn. (For regular updates in this ongoing series about product, leadership, and scaling, subscribe to amivora.substack.com!)

In product design, your biggest weapon isn't what you add—it's what you take away. When I was at Microsoft, we discovered a painful truth that most options in Microsoft Office were used by fewer than 5% of customers. We had created layers upon layers of menu options that made the products barely usable. This led to a complete redesign with the 'Ribbon' interface in 2007—a necessary simplification that changed how we thought about feature prioritization. The lesson is that every feature you add is: - One more thing to maintain - One more thing to explain - One more thing that could break - One more thing to distract from core value Great product teams don't compete on who can add the most features. They compete on who can deliver the most value with the fewest moving parts. What feature could you remove from your product today to make it better? #ProductManagement #UX #ProductDesign"