Designing Experiences That Don’t Confuse People

Support shouldn’t exist to guide users through broken designs. It should exist to enhance the experience, not repair it.

When your customer has to ask for help, a confusing support experience just makes the situation worse, it’s a failure of design, process, or communication. Frustration isn’t a bug in your product; it’s a symptom of poor thinking upstream.

Lost in the Labyrinth

We’ve all been there:

• Press 1. Then 3. Then 5. Then told to use the website. Then cut off.
• You try random options just to reach a human.
• You ask a chatbot something basic and hit a wall: “Query not recognised.”
• It’s not that the tech is bad. It’s that the experience is.

Support starts to feel like a maze. And the more complex the system, the more people need help. That’s not innovation, it’s avoidance.

It’s no help blaming users. If they’re confused, that’s on us. Complexity drives support volume. Simplicity reduces it. Every point of friction adds cost and burns trust.

Frustration is a Design Problem

Imagine buying something as bold and sleek as a high-performance EV, and then the app that controls it feels like it was built in a rush. Suddenly the premium experience collapses into a customer service ticket. Not because the product failed, but because the interface or instructions weren’t clear. The issue wasn’t mechanical. It was mental.

Support isn’t about patching over those gaps. It’s about removing them.

“Frustration is a design failure, not a user failure.”

This is why we embed ourselves in support operations not just to solve problems, but to trace them to their roots. Often, they don’t sit in the support centre, they’re upstream in UX, processes, or assumptions that nobody questioned.

As the Nielsen Norman Group puts it, mental models matter: when a system doesn’t behave the way users expect, confusion and frustration follow fast. Data Source

Feedback Is a Treasure Map

Most companies treat feedback as a checkbox. I see it as a roadmap.

Every ticket logged, every call answered, every comment, it’s a signal. A chance to uncover a broken path, a confusing button, or a missing confirmation screen.

When your users tell you what’s not working, believe them. Don’t defend. Don’t delay. Fix it, and then fix what made it happen.

Simple Isn’t Easy. But It Works.

The best support strategy isn’t another helpdesk. It’s clarity.

That means:

• Language that speaks to people, not policies.
• Interfaces that guide, not guess.
• AI that helps, not hides.
• Systems designed with the user’s brain in mind, not the org chart.

True simplicity takes time. It means walking through every journey, step by step, and asking: “Would this make sense if I’d never seen it before?”

“Support is often a maze. It shouldn’t be.”

And if it is? You just gave your competitors an opening.

According to a Harvard Business Review study, customers are more loyal to companies that make their experiences effortless, not flashy. In fact, reducing effort is more effective than trying to “delight” users. Source

The Human Layer Still Matters

Even with automation, fast portals, and smart apps, people still matter. Because when something breaks, it’s not just about the fix. It’s about how you make someone feel in that moment.

A user’s trust is at its most fragile when they’re stuck. How you respond determines if they stay or walk away.

This is where technology needs restraint. Automation is powerful, but it can’t replace empathy. It should remove steps, not remove connection.

Design With Support in Mind

Most companies build a product and bolt support on later. We flip that around.

Designing great support starts before launch:

• Write the help articles as you build.
• Ask your support team what users need to knew.
• Watch how people actually use your product, not how you want them to.
• Make clarity a KPI.

Because in the end, the real test isn’t how cool your product looks. It’s how obvious it is to use. And how few people need to ask for help.