Member-only story

Why I no longer care what people “like” or “don’t like”

In design, these phrases can be misleading

Trina Moore Pervall
UX Collective
6 min readJul 18, 2022
Facial reactions of an unhappy person on the left and a happy person on the right.
Shallow likes and dislikes shouldn’t dictate design decisions (Photo by Wayhome Studio on Adobe Stock)

In UX and product design, “like,” and “don’t like” are overvalued and can mislead design decisions. Early in my career, someone saying, “I like it!” encouraged me to feel satisfied with a design that actually didn’t address business goals or diverse user needs. “I don’t like…” led me to changing a design repeatedly in an attempt to blindly figure out what they do “like.”

  • I like dark mode. Great! Now, should we change the default theme to light text on a dark background?
  • I don’t like pop-ups. Oh no! Should we remove all of our pop-ups?

Maybe, maybe not. The problem with these statements is that they have no context, so they don’t convey why people liked or disliked the design.

Across social media sites, I see people posting two design concepts (A/B) and asking others, “Which do you like better?” The comments are filled with responses of “I like X better” without any contextual information. However, the responses should be flooded with people asking about the business goals, the product’s users, and any other situational details.

User experiences are a consequence of their internal state, the characteristics of…

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Trina Moore Pervall

UX Researcher & Designer advocating for social equity in technology through inclusive design. For more: uxforthewin.com/links

Responses (2)

What are your thoughts?