Users NEVER think about your product the way you think they do.
Here’s what they actually do:
1. They assume everything should be obvious
If something takes more than a few seconds to understand, they blame the product, not themselves.
This is a constant problem that UI and UX designers run into. Showing users the right things at the right time, while keeping everything else hidden away will always be a challenge for the ages.
2. They don’t care how your system works
APIs, workflows, architecture… none of it matters.
They only care about:
“Can I do the thing I came here to do?”
If they can’t, that frustration lands on support.
The way out from that is to not inundate them with onboarding questions, but to understand your product’s top 3 use-cases, and build your onboarding only around that.
3. They decide in the first reply whether your company listens
And once they feel “unheard,” every future reply has to climb uphill.
Whether you use to-the-point responses or longer ones to sound friendly, it ultimately comes down to whether your team understood and resolved the problem.
4. They don’t read documentation
Not because they’re lazy, but because they’re overwhelmed.
Your product is one tab in a sea of tabs. And too much text is always a turn-off.
They want answers, not homework.
So documentation and onboarding are a true balancing act.
5. They will forgive bugs, but not being ignored
Users will tolerate mistakes, outages, even downtime…
But silence?
That’s what breaks trust. If they know what’s going, if they see you’re proactive, most professional users with real businesses understand that things happen.
Working through thousands of real conversations teaches you that people don’t think in features, workflows, or roadmaps.
They think in problems, emotions, and urgency.
And the companies that win are the ones that learn to think the same way.