From “obvious” to delightful: building products for real people
Designing products tailored to how people actually behave
· TechRadarOpinion By Paulo Cunha published 23 March 2026
Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter
Get the TechRadar Newsletter
Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter
A user missed a key element and opened a help desk ticket. Another got stuck in onboarding and gave up. A third never used the feature your team was excited about.
When that happens, the instinct is often to blame the user, make the feature more prominent, or add more guidance to explain how to use it.
But there is often a deeper cause: we designed for an idealized user, for how we think, or for how we wish people thought, instead of how people actually behave.
Article continues below
Paulo Cunha
CEO at Pipedrive.
Real users are busy and distracted. They switch tabs, answer messages, join meetings, and try to get work done in short bursts. They rely on shortcuts, familiar patterns, and quick judgments.
They do not read every word, remember every instruction, or weigh every option calmly. Most of us do not, most of the time. The best products and marketing lean into that reality and build around it.
And yet product teams still design for an idealized user: someone who understands the category, speaks the team’s vocabulary, and has the patience to explore. That mindset leads teams to optimize around internal expertise, feedback from power users, or keeping pace with competitors.
The gap between designing for idealized users and designing for real users shows up in predictable ways: low adoption, repeated nudges, feature fatigue, and a growing sense that the product asks for effort before it gives back value.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors