Your UI is costing you—here’s how to fix it

The latest news from Balsamiq:
The Everything Trap

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Ciao friends,

Every year, Black Friday reminds me of why simplicity wins.

Yesterday, I was shopping for a gift online. The item I wanted was in stock, the price was great, and I was ready to buy. But before I could check out, the popups started.

Join our rewards program. Flash sale—20% off. Chat with us now.

My focus splintered. What should have been a seamless “want-to-buy” journey turned into a game I didn’t sign up to play. Frustrated, I abandoned the cart and bought the gift somewhere else.

This isn’t just an e-commerce problem. The same thing happens in internal tools, dashboards, and apps.

It’s what we call The Everything Trap.

What is The Everything Trap?

The Everything Trap happens when tools, apps, or websites try to be everything to everyone. They pile on features, buttons, and options, thinking more will be better.

But it’s not.

Instead, all that extra stuff creates clutter. It slows your users down. It distracts them from what matters. It makes them feel like your product is working against them—not for them.

Even tools we love, like Slack, aren’t immune. Over time and as features multiply, they can feel overwhelming:

The result is friction. And friction is the enemy of progress:

Abandoned tasks? Friction.
Higher churn rates? Friction.

So, is it just a design problem?

Maybe, but this is where many teams go wrong. They think the answer is better visual design—polishing cluttered interfaces with high-fidelity mockups, animations, or fancy tracking tools.

But better design won’t save a bad experience.

The Everything Trap isn’t just a design problem. It’s a user experience problem rooted in psychology.

Every extra feature, button, or popup increases cognitive load (the mental effort required to process information). It makes your users work harder to focus and make decisions. That’s exhausting—and it’s why people leave cluttered apps, dashboards, or checkout pages.

UX expert, Paul Boag, explains this beautifully in his free Psychology of UI Design course:

Reducing distractions makes it easier for users to process information.
Reducing cognitive load builds trust in your product.
Focusing attention helps users accomplish their goals (and yours).

The antidote to friction is simplicity.

A simpler UI saves time, builds trust, and makes your product feel better to use. Trust builds. Tasks get done faster. Everyone wins.

How to escape The Everything Trap

Here’s a quick framework from Paul to simplify your UI/UX:

Can you remove it? If this button, field, or feature disappeared, would anyone care? If not, it’s clutter.
Can you hide it? If something’s useful but not always needed, tuck it away in a dropdown or secondary menu. (The growth mind in me is here to remind you that you can notify or email users who need it, while letting everyone else safely ignore it.)
Can you shrink it? Use size, placement, or color to make the important stuff stand out and let everything else fade.
Can you break it up? Break up dense walls of text with short paragraphs, headings, and bullet points. Lead with what users need to know now—everything else can wait.

If you’ve got 10 minutes, Paul’s video on this topic is worth a watch: Introducing simplicity to your site

What’s at stake

The Everything Trap isn’t just about cluttered screens or frustrated users. It’s about whether your product can stand the test of time.

My guess is that most of your favorite, longest-lasting products took The Everything Trap seriously—hopefully this inspires you to do the same.

Happy customer of the month

Happy to confirm my hunch: Balsamiq is still the best (and better than all the well-funded competitors). — Brian Casel

Product news

Here’s a simple way to save time and keep your wireframes consistent: Symbols.

Symbols are reusable UI elements—think headers, menus, or buttons—that automatically stay synced across your project. Update a Symbol once, and every instance updates with it.

They’re ideal for streamlining your workflow, keeping designs consistent, and reducing rework.

Learn more about Symbols

Wireframing Academy news

Some highlights from this past month:

Wireframing for responsive design
Wireframing for site-builder applications (like Squarespace or Wix)
Designing for action: Best practices for effective buttons

Company News

We’re still working on implementing EOS. Since I was last in your inbox, all teams adopted the Level 10 meeting agenda and we set some dates for annual planning (early December).

Beyond that, we’re conducting some research and are looking for people who want to help us make Balsamiq better.

That's it for this month!

Happy Thanksgiving to our US-based friends and happy end of November to everyone else. Let me know what you thought of this month’s newsletter and if there’s anything you’d like us to write about in the future.

See you next month, with more behind-the-scenes news from your friends at Balsamiq!

Arielle for the Balsamiq Team

Most new customers find Balsamiq via recommendation...

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Your UI is costing you—here’s how to fix it

What is The Everything Trap?

So, is it just a design problem?

How to escape The Everything Trap

What’s at stake

Happy customer of the month

Product news

Wireframing Academy news

Company News

That's it for this month!

Most new customers find Balsamiq via recommendation...

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