Letting go of ego
The key to becoming a truly effective UX/UI designer
In the world of user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, success is not defined by how clever, flashy, or unique a design appears to its creator — but by how effortlessly and meaningfully it serves its users. Yet, despite this, many designers fall into a common trap: ego. Whether it’s defending an aesthetic choice, resisting usability feedback, or designing for themselves, ego can subtly infiltrate the creative process and derail the mission of designing for real people.
The role ego plays in everyday life
Ego, in its simplest form, is our sense of self. Originating from Freudian psychology, the ego encompasses our self-image, our confidence, and our perception of personal importance in the world. It’s the internal voice that defines how we see ourselves, how we interpret challenges, and how we respond to praise or criticism.
A healthy ego plays a critical role in day-to-day life. It enables us to:
- Assert boundaries in relationships and work environments.
- Take ownership of our achievements and strive for personal growth.
- Act with confidence, especially in uncertain or high-stakes situations.
In this sense, ego is not inherently bad. It provides the structure of self-worth that allows us to function, make decisions, and engage with the world around us. Without some degree of ego, we wouldn’t be able to advocate for ourselves or take pride in our work.
However, issues arise when ego becomes inflated or fragile. An overactive ego may:
- Overvalue personal opinions and dismiss alternative viewpoints.
- Avoid criticism, taking it as a personal attack rather than a chance for improvement.
- Ignore data or facts that challenge one’s self-image or worldview.
- Feel threatened by collaboration, perceiving differing ideas as competition rather than contributions.
This skewed perception can distort judgment and cause people to double down on flawed thinking simply to protect their ego. In team-based, iterative environments like UX/UI design, this can lead to poor collaboration, slow growth, and, most importantly, user-unfriendly products.
One of the most cited psychological studies exploring the pitfalls of ego is the 1999 research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger. The “Dunning-Kruger Effect” reveals a paradox: those who know the least often believe they know the most. Because they lack the metacognitive ability to recognise their own shortcomings, they overestimate their competence. In contrast, those with higher competence tend to underestimate their abilities, assuming tasks are as easy for others as they are for themselves.
This is particularly important in professional fields where confidence can mask incompetence, and where humility — an antidote to ego — is a key to success. In UX/UI design, the dangers of this cognitive bias are amplified by the fact that design decisions directly affect others. A designer who overestimates their knowledge may skip user testing, ignore accessibility concerns, or assume that if a design “makes sense to them,” it must work for everyone else.
Moreover, modern research on cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias shows that people tend to seek information that confirms their existing beliefs and avoid data that challenges them. Ego plays a central role in this self-protective mechanism. When new evidence threatens our sense of competence or identity, we may dismiss it — not because it’s wrong, but because it makes us feel uncomfortable.
This means that the ego not only affects how we see ourselves, but also how we interpret feedback, collaborate with others, and make decisions — all of which are crucial elements in the UX design process.
In essence, the ego is like a double-edged sword: it can fuel ambition and creativity when balanced, or undermine growth and collaboration when unchecked. For UX/UI designers, who must constantly balance their vision with the needs of real users, learning to recognise and manage ego is not just a personal growth strategy — it’s a professional imperative.
The temptation of ego in design
Design is a blend of art and science. It calls on both analytical precision and emotional creativity, requiring designers to solve complex problems with aesthetically pleasing, human-centered solutions. UX/UI designers often spend hours iterating wireframes, perfecting micro-interactions, refining color palettes, and mapping out flows. It’s not just work — it’s a craft, and often, a reflection of one’s personal identity.
Because of this deep personal investment, it can be difficult to separate oneself from the work. What begins as a rational design decision can gradually morph into something more emotional — a territory where ego begins to stake its claim. When we identify too closely with our designs, critique can feel like a threat, and data that contradicts our assumptions can feel like rejection. The more we pour ourselves into our work, the harder it becomes to let go or see it objectively.
Ego tends to sneak in subtly, often disguised as confidence, experience, or creative vision. It can manifest in a variety of ways:
- “It’s intuitive because I get it.”
Designers sometimes assume that if a layout, interaction, or flow feels obvious to them, it must feel that way to everyone. But what’s intuitive to someone deeply familiar with the interface and the objectives is not necessarily intuitive to the first time user. This assumption can lead to blind spots, where core usability issues are overlooked because they don’t appear to the creator. - “Test result must be an outlier.”
When usability testing reveals unexpected results it can be tempting to dismiss those outcomes as anomalies rather than signals. Designers may downplay or ignore this feedback because it contradicts their intended design narrative. Instead of embracing user input as a tool for refinement, ego can reframe it as interference. - “It’s user error, not a design flaw.”
Blaming users for interacting with a product “incorrectly” reflects a failure in the design process. If several users are misunderstanding or misusing a feature, the onus is on the design to adapt, not on the users to “figure it out.” Yet ego can lead designers to deflect responsibility, preserving their self-image at the expense of user experience. - “Trendy beats usable.”
In an industry heavily influenced by aesthetics, motion, and visual innovation, it’s easy to prioritise sleek, cutting-edge visuals over fundamental usability or accessibility. When ego drives a desire to impress peers or win awards, visual polish can overshadow clarity, contrast, readability, and accessibility. Users with disabilities, older devices, or differing levels of tech fluency are often the first to suffer.
In these moments, something dangerous happens:
The designer becomes the user, and the actual user becomes invisible.
This shift is subtle but significant. Instead of designing for the people who will use the product in real-world contexts, the designer begins designing for themselves — for their own satisfaction, reputation, or creative validation. The user’s needs, behaviors, and feedback become secondary, or worse, irrelevant.
And it’s important to note: this doesn’t stem from malice or neglect. It stems from attachment — to ideas, to effort already spent, but mainly, to identity. This is what makes ego in design difficult to manage. It doesn’t always feel like arrogance. Sometimes it feels like conviction. But when that conviction becomes inflexible, it can compromise the core purpose of design: solving problems for real people.
Ego-driven design is not only risky — it’s also unsustainable. Without openness to change and collaboration, products stagnate, innovation stalls, and feedback loops break down. Over time, users leave, adoption declines, and the product loses its value — not because the idea wasn’t good, but because it wasn’t allowed to evolve.
To be a great designer, it’s essential to cultivate not just creativity and skill, but also self-awareness. Recognising when ego is influencing your decisions is the first step toward designing not just for users, but with them.
Physical impact ego can have on users
When ego drives design decisions, it shifts focus away from the user’s needs and toward the designer’s preferences. This misalignment can quietly — but significantly — undermine the product’s effectiveness, accessibility, and long-term success. The consequences aren’t always immediately obvious, but over time, they can lead to reduced usability, lost trust, and increased development costs. Here’s some examples of how ego manifests as a physical restriction on end users:
1. Broken usability: prioritising beauty function
Usability — the ease with which users can achieve their goals is the foundation of good UX. Yet, ego-driven design often prioritises what looks good over what works well. Designers may be tempted to showcase their artistic skills or follow visually “trending” patterns without validating them through user testing. This leads to several usability breakdowns:
- Non-standard navigation patterns: For instance, hiding navigation elements in unfamiliar gestures or abstract icons may be “on trend” but confuse users unfamiliar with those interactions.
- Feature overload: Ego can push designers to include bells and whistles users didn’t ask for — thinking “more is better.” The result? Cognitive overload. Instead of helping users accomplish tasks quickly, the interface becomes a maze of distractions.
- Ambiguous visual cues: Beautiful UI elements — like ghost buttons, icons without labels, or minimalist interactions — might look polished, but if users can’t intuitively understand their purpose, they fail.
These problems frequently go undetected during internal reviews, especially when teams are too close to the product. Only usability testing — conducted with real users in real contexts — can expose these pain points.
2. Accessibility gaps: when one perspective excludes many
An ego-driven approach often assumes that the “default user” is someone like the designer — tech-savvy, visually able, fast internet, latest device. This unconscious bias results in products that are unintentionally exclusionary.
Accessibility issues show up when:
- Color contrast is too low for users with visual impairments, because it “looks better” to the designer.
- Touch targets are too small for people with motor impairments or larger fingers.
- Animations or complex flows overwhelm users with cognitive challenges or neurodivergence.
- Keyboard navigation or screen reader support is missing, cutting out users who rely on assistive technologies.
The World Health Organization estimates that over 1 billion people live with some form of disability. Failing to design inclusively is not just ethically problematic — it’s also a business risk. Ignoring accessibility effectively closes your product off to entire demographics. Worse, it tells those users that their needs don’t matter.
Insight from the field: Accessibility specialist Léonie Watson notes, “When we treat accessibility as an afterthought, we’re designing barriers.” Ego can blind designers to those barriers, especially if they’re never affected by them.
3. Wasted development time: when flawed assumptions drive the roadmap
Design decisions based on assumptions rather than user insights are risky, and risk, when untested, leads to rework. While designers may push forward with confidence, the absence of feedback means there’s no real-world validation and as a result, the potential of a launch followed by debt management.
Other costs of ego-driven misdirection include:
- Revisions after release: Post-launch issues often require redesigns and patches, slowing down roadmaps and frustrating development teams.
- Increased customer support load: Confusing or broken experiences lead to a flood of support tickets, taking resources away from other priorities.
- Wasted stakeholder trust: Product managers and executives lose faith in the design process when features need urgent fixing.
4. Erosion of trust: When users feel unheard
When ego blocks user feedback, it breaks the feedback loop that fuels great UX and product development. Over time, this leads to frustration — not just with the product, but with the brand behind it. Users don’t just want a functional tool — they want to feel heard, valued, and understood. When they aren’t, they begin to disengage. Thoughts such as these may take root:
- “This product clearly wasn’t built for someone like me.”
- “Why submit feedback if nothing changes?”
This emotional disconnection is hard to recover from. It’s not just about features anymore — it’s about trust. And once trust is lost, users don’t just stop using the product — they start telling others not to. Negative reviews, low app ratings, poor word-of-mouth — all stem from unmet expectations and perceived indifference.
Listening to users and not your ego
Listening to users isn’t just good ethics — it’s smart strategy. Design thrives not in isolation, but in conversation. Every product exists to serve people, and if we want to build things that truly work, we have to understand how those people think, feel, and behave.
A 2020 Forrester Research report highlighted a compelling truth: companies that deeply embed user-centered design into their processes see a 200% higher ROI compared to those that don’t. That kind of return doesn’t come from luck or aesthetics — it comes from solving the right problems in the right way.
Why listening works: Beyond surface-level feedback
Listening goes deeper than asking, “Do you like this?” It’s about uncovering why users behave the way they do, what motivates their actions, and where their pain points lie. When we truly listen, we unlock advantages at every stage of the design process.
1. Uncover hidden pain-points. What seems like a flawless design in a small product team can easily collapse under real-world use. Designers are often too close to the product — they know the logic, the flow, the intent, but users don’t. When speaking to users, it uncovers different assumptions, expectations, and contexts.
Example: Slack discovered that users were overwhelmed by channels when first onboarding. Early feedback showed that people didn’t understand how to use Slack effectively unless guided. This insight led to the introduction of better onboarding flows, starter channels, and improved tooltips.
https://www.appcues.com/blog/slack-user-onboarding-experience
2. Validate (or invalidate) design assumptions. Design is often hypothesis-driven. We believe a certain flow will make things easier. We assume a new feature will delight. However, without user testing and feedback, those beliefs remain unproven.
User input acts as a reality check:
- Do users interpret our design the way we expect?
- Are they able to complete tasks without confusion or frustration?
- Do they notice the improvements we thought were significant?
Feedback prevents expensive missteps and helps double down on what’s actually working.
Example: When Instagram tested hiding public “likes,” they leaned heavily on user interviews and behavioral data. While some users felt relieved and focused more on content, others found it confusing or demotivating. Instead of forcing a universal change, Instagram offered it as an optional setting — respecting different user needs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/15/hiding-instagram-likes
3. Foster empathy through real human stories. Design is not just problem-solving — it’s storytelling and the best stories come from people. Interviews, usability sessions, support transcripts, and user recordings all bring us closer to the emotional context behind user behavior. If we aim to understand users as humans , and not metrics, it will lead to more compassionate, inclusive design. It changes how we frame problems, define goals, and prioritise features.
Example: Headspace expanded its offerings after listening to users struggling with sleep, anxiety, and pandemic stress. What started as a mindfulness app grew into a broader wellness platform — because they listened with empathy and designed for evolving needs.
4. Fuel iterative improvement and continuous learning. No product is ever done. Even the best-designed experiences degrade over time as user expectations shift, technology evolves, and new needs emerge. Feedback keeps your product alive and adaptable.
User listening enables:
- Smarter A/B testing with clearer hypotheses.
- Agile design sprints grounded in user behavior.
- Product roadmaps that reflect real demand, not assumed trends.
It’s not about getting it perfect the first time. It’s about building mindset that is open to learning.
Example: Airbnb revolutionised its product by observing real hosts and guests using the platform in their homes. They noticed emotional pain points around trust, unclear communication, and photo quality. This led to better profile systems, simplified messaging tools, and a program where Airbnb helped hosts improve listing photography.
https://news.airbnb.com/an-update-on-our-work-to-empower-hosts-to-deliver-high-quality-stays/
Listening is a competitive advantage
In a crowded marketplace, user experience is the differentiator. Products that feel effortless and intuitive win loyalty. When you listen and build with users, not just for them, you can expect to reduce churn, increase satisfaction, and create emotional resonance that can’t be copied.
Listening isn’t about giving up creative control. It’s about co-creating with the people who matter most.
Balancing personal vision alongside best practices, and user feedback
Great design is not a product of a single perspective or rigid adherence to one methodology; it thrives when a designer can find the sweet spot between 4 key areas:
- Personal experience
- Proven best practises
- User feedback
- Collaboration
While the ego may push a designer to prioritise their own ideas and preferences, exceptional design is born from a thoughtful, balanced approach that integrates all these elements harmoniously.
1. Personal experience: Intuition and taste
Every designer brings a wealth of personal experience, knowledge, and intuition to their work. Designers draw upon their understanding of human behavior, visual design principles, and cultural nuances to create solutions that resonate with users. A designer’s individual taste can shape an interface’s aesthetic choices, from color palettes to typography to the overall layout.
However, it’s important that designers acknowledge when their personal taste could conflict with user needs or usability principles. Relying too heavily on personal intuition without validating it with real-world data and user feedback can lead to designs that cater more to the designer’s vision than the user’s requirements.
2. Best practices: A solid foundation
Best practices in design, such as Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics, form the backbone of any successful design. These principles are based on decades of user research and are time-tested guidelines that help ensure usability, clarity, and efficiency. Best practices offer a blueprint that reduces the risk of common mistakes, guiding designers in creating interfaces that are intuitive, user-friendly, and accessible.
For example, principles like consistency in design elements, providing user action feedback, and making navigation intuitive are all best practices that ensure designs meet users’ expectations and needs. While personal vision and creativity are essential, they must be aligned with these foundational principles to create a design that is both functional and enjoyable.
3. User feedback: Grounding design in reality
User feedback is the most crucial element that ties together personal vision and best practices. Without it, designers are merely guessing what users want or need, which can lead to a product that is disconnected from the real world. Listening to users allows designers to identify pain points, observe behaviors, and understand motivations that can be translated into actionable design improvements.
User feedback keeps design grounded in reality, ensuring that decisions are based on actual user behaviors and experiences rather than assumptions or ego biases. It encourages continuous iteration, and if designers remain receptive to user feedback and making data-driven decisions, they improve not just the design but the overall user experience.
Successful collaboration requires designers to practise humility and remain open. Adam Grant, an organisational psychologist, coined the term “confident humility” to describe a mindset that strikes a balance between self-assurance and openness to new ideas. A designer with confident humility trusts their skills and knowledge but remains humble enough to accept that their ideas are not always the best or the most suitable for every situation.
This mindset is crucial for designers who want to create great products. It allows them to propose bold, creative ideas without being overly attached to them. They understand that feedback, especially from users, can lead to better, more refined outcomes. By remaining open to change and willing to adjust, designers can avoid falling into the trap of designing based solely on personal biases or unchecked assumptions.
4. The role of collaboration
Achieving the right balance between personal vision, best practices, and user feedback requires collaboration. Designers often work with teams of developers, product managers, marketers, and other stakeholders, each bringing their own expertise and insights. Collaboration enables designers to challenge their assumptions, validate their ideas, and gain new perspectives that can enrich the design process.
Working with others also helps to ensure that the design is aligned with the broader business goals, and technical feasibility. While personal vision might be a driving force, it must align with the reality of the business and user needs. Collaboration fosters a healthy back-and-forth where design decisions are questioned, refined, and improved. This constant interaction and exchange of ideas help keep the designer’s ego in check and ensure the design solution is always user-centered.
Striking the right balance: The key to great design
Designers who successfully balance these five elements — personal experience, best practices, user feedback, and collaboration — are better positioned to create designs that are innovative, functional, and user-friendly. They do not rely on a single perspective but draw from a diverse set of influences to craft solutions that are both creative and pragmatic.
When designers let go of their egos and embrace this holistic approach, they are more likely to create designs that resonate with users, solve real problems, and stand the test of time. They understand that great design is not about proving one’s creativity or vision; it’s about crafting solutions that align with the needs of the people who use them.
Practical techniques to manage ego in UX design
Ego can be a subtle but powerful force in the design process, sometimes clouding judgment and inhibiting creativity. However, great UX design thrives when designers are open to feedback, willing to iterate, and always focused on the end user’s needs. Here are several techniques that designers can use to manage ego and create more user-centered, effective designs.
1. Test early and often
One of the most effective ways to minimise the influence of ego in the design process is to conduct user testing early and continuously. Waiting until the final stages of development to gather feedback can lead to frustration, wasted resources, and a product that doesn’t meet user expectations.
By testing designs early — whether through low-fidelity wireframes, prototypes, or even user interviews — designers can identify potential issues long before they become entrenched in the final product. Early testing ensures that designers stay grounded in the reality of user needs, allowing them to adjust course and refine designs before launching. The constant influx of user feedback helps prevent the tendency to become attached to initial design ideas that may not actually be the most effective solutions.
2. Invite design critiques
Design critiques are essential for creating strong UX/UI designs. It’s easy for designers to fall into the trap of defending their work, especially when they’ve invested a lot of time and effort into it. However, inviting constructive criticism from colleagues, stakeholders, and other design professionals can help identify blind spots and improve the quality of the design.
Instead of viewing critiques as personal attacks, designers should approach them as opportunities to learn and grow. Critiques should focus on the design’s objectives, user needs, and functionality — not the designer’s personal preferences. By adopting a collaborative mindset, designers can foster a feedback-rich environment where ideas can evolve, resulting in more effective and user-centered designs.
3. Build personas and empathy maps
To stay connected to the needs and emotions of real users, designers should consistently refer to personas and empathy maps. These tools help designers understand the target audience from a human perspective, allowing them to design for users, not for their own preferences. Personas represent specific user types based on research, and empathy maps provide insight into users’ thoughts, feelings, and pain points.
When designers focus on the real people using their product, it becomes much easier to set aside personal preferences and prioritise the needs of the users. This mindset helps mitigate the influence of ego, ensuring that designs are created with empathy, inclusion, and accessibility in mind.
4. Use post-mortems
After every product release, it’s essential for designers and teams to conduct post-mortems — reflective evaluations of the project’s successes and failures. Post-mortems should focus on the user experience, asking questions like: What worked well for users? What didn’t work as expected? Did user feedback point to any areas of improvement?
By reviewing the design with a user-centric lens, designers can learn valuable lessons from the process and avoid making the same mistakes in future projects. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on whether ego influenced design decisions or whether the design truly served the user’s needs. Post-mortems help designers stay humble, open to criticism, and committed to continuous improvement.
5. Practise Julie Zhuo’s “Strong Opinions, Loosely Held” philosophy
Julie Zhuo, the former VP of Product Design at Facebook, advocates for a design philosophy called “strong opinions, loosely held.” This approach emphasises the importance of being passionate and confident in your design ideas, but also being ready to pivot when presented with new information, user feedback, or better ideas.
Designers who embrace this mindset are not rigidly attached to their initial designs. Instead, they’re open to adapting and improving based on data and insights from real users. This flexibility allows designers to approach design with both conviction and humility, creating a balance between personal creativity and the evolving needs of the users.
6. Collaborate and share ownership
One of the key ways to minimise ego in design is through collaboration. The design process is rarely a solo endeavor, and great design often results from diverse perspectives and collective expertise. By involving other stakeholders early — whether product managers, developers, or users — designers share ownership of the process and the end result.
Collaboration fosters an environment where ideas can be tested, refined, and improved by multiple viewpoints, preventing any single individual’s preferences from dominating the design. This also helps eliminate biases that may arise from a designer’s ego, as collective input and constructive debates ensure the product is well-rounded and user-centric.
7. Seek mentorship and continuous learning
Designers can benefit greatly from mentorship and continuous learning throughout their careers. Seeking out mentors who offer guidance and constructive criticism helps designers grow and see beyond their own perspective. A mentor can help challenge assumptions, offer fresh ideas, and provide advice on how to better balance creativity with user needs.
Additionally, ongoing learning — whether through design courses, industry conferences, or staying up to date with current trends — helps designers remain open to new approaches and ideas. Continuous learning combats complacency and ego-driven behaviors by keeping designers aware of how the field is evolving and encouraging them to adapt their methods accordingly.
Conclusion: Why we should not listen to our egos as user experience designers
As user experience designers, it’s essential to remember that the focus of our work is not about showcasing our creativity or proving how well we can execute our ideas. Rather, it’s about solving real problems for real people. The temptation to listen to our egos — to defend our designs, stick to our initial concepts, or assume that our perspective is the definitive one — is one of the most dangerous pitfalls in the design process. Ego, when left unchecked, has the power to steer us away from the very users we are designing for.
The most important principle in UX design is simple: you are not your user. Even if you use the product, your experience is shaped by existing mental models, technical fluency, and design literacy. You understand the inner workings of the system, its nuances, and its features in ways that everyday users don’t. When we design from this insider perspective, we risk overlooking the needs and behaviors of those who will actually use the product.
As usability expert Jared Spool rightly puts it, “Without user research, you’re just guessing.” It’s easy to think that our instincts, honed by experience and expertise, are the right guide. But relying solely on those instincts without validating them with real user feedback is not only unprofessional — it’s counterproductive. When we listen to our egos and ignore users, we end up designing for ourselves, not for them.
Ego is part of being human — and part of being a designer. We all have preferences, ideas, and a vision for what we believe would work best. But when ego dominates the design process, it shifts the focus away from problem-solving and toward self-expression. The product moves inward, shaped by our personal tastes and biases, and drifts further from the needs of the user.
Ultimately, UX/UI design isn’t about being right. It’s about getting it right for the people who matter most: your users. Letting go of ego doesn’t diminish the designer’s role — it elevates it. It transforms the design process into a collaborative journey where user feedback, insights, and data lead the way. By embracing a mindset of open-mindedness, humility, and continual iteration, we can create designs that not only function and look beautiful, but that are meaningful, inclusive, accessible, and impactful.
In the end, great design doesn’t shout, “Look at me.” Instead, it quietly, confidently says, “I see you.” And that, in the end, is the hallmark of truly great UX design.
Resources
Sigmond Freud’s phsychology theories:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/freudian-psychology
Adam Grant on practising Humility in design:
https://chief.com/articles/adam-grant
Jakob Neilson Usability Heuristics for UI Design:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
WebAIM Contrast Analyser:
https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
Minimizing user’s cognitive load:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/minimize-cognitive-load/
