It’s Time to Kill the “User” in UX

AI is getting more human-like. UX needs to remember the human it left behind.

Hot take: we need to stop designing for users. We need to start designing for humans.

By now, the word “user” has come to dominate our field. And while it gave us credibility in the tech world, I’ve come to loathe the word. It’s so abstract and impersonal. Bleh. It reduces people to concepts and transactions, instead of recognizing them as whole, complex, emotional beings.

And no longer a harmless quirk of language. In this day and age of AI, it’s a liability, for crying out loud! No wonder everyone is running around worried that AI is going to take over our jobs.

Outpaced by AI

Here’s the irony…

The skill level of UX designers is assessed by reviewing portfolios of design patterns and beautiful component libraries. I look at tons of mock ups and wireframes. On the non-designy side, I see a huge focus on KPIs, and other metrics. Yes, sometimes I see still see journey maps, and personas, but those are becoming few and far between. (I often feel like those exercises are done as a “check-the-box” task and rarely ever consulted throughout the project, but that can be a blog post for another day).

On the other hand, AI has been racing ahead — teaching itself to “sound” and “feel” more human. Natural language processing has become astonishingly conversational. Generative models are learning tone, empathy, even humor.

Think about that: AI is becoming more human-like at the very moment UX has become more user-like.

While we obsess over workflows and best practices, and look for the slickest dribbble dashboards, AI is mastering context, memory, and interaction. It doesn’t just respond to clicks — it talks, persuades, and adapts. They are engineering ways to infer how a person is feeling based on the tone of someone’s prompt and respond accordingly.

In many ways, AI is outpacing us in delivering what feels like a more human experience.

And that should worry us. Because if we are supposed to be the ultimate defenders and advocates for users, I mean, …humans, then we need to get step up our game!

Beyond Good UX

When most people talk about “good UX,” they’re usually talking about small, discrete patterns or expected interactions on a screen. Things like: “When I hit X button, I expect to see Y behavior.”

And yeah, it’s true —those things are “good UX”. Having a shared foundation of expected interactions is important. These patterns are so ingrained in us they feel subconscious. They keep products usable. Basic “good UX” is almost an unspoken requirement of any member of the team creating a user facing product, not just the UX designer.

But if we shift the lens to human experience, the conversation changes. We move from button clicks to the big picture: What the heck is this person actually trying to accomplish? How do they feel while doing it? Frustrated? On a roll? Where does this task fit into the broader context of what they’re trying to accomplish? Let’s get out of the weeds of button clicks and talk about problems we’re actually trying to solve.

That’s where the real work is. Not just in making interactions predictable, but in making experiences meaningful.

Designing for Human Experiences

If AI is going to act more human-like, then our discipline has to double down on what makes experiences truly human.

That starts with asking bigger questions. Not just “What interaction should happen when I press this button?” but “What problem is this person really trying to solve? Where does this task fit in their broader context? How should this moment feel?”

For too long, we’ve leaned on shallow shorthand: “we did a heuristic evaluation” “this is a pain point,” “the user is frustrated.” (Cue Robot Voice.) Good intentioned designers sense frustration and rush to fix issues like helicopter parents. But those phrases are also often too inadequate to describe the complexity of what someone is going through. We rarely ever go into much further about why these are pain points or what makes them so frustrated. Most of the time, you only need to dig in far enough to figure out an immediate fix and convey that to the dev team.

Our skill sets must evolve. We need to get more nuanced in our language and in our practice:

• Is the human feeling excluded, dismissed, or unseen?
• Are they confused, or are they mistrustful?
• Are they anxious because the system is unclear, or because the stakes of the task are high?
• Is their frustration coming from the interface, or from the broader context the technology is dropped into?

Designing for human experiences means going beyond friction maps and flows. It means studying intent, emotion, and context — and shaping systems that respect all three.

How Did We Stray So Far?

For what it’s worth, ‘User Experience’ didn’t take over by chance. Designers have long fought to be seen as equals, not just the ‘make it pretty’ team. The term sounded technical! nuanced! strategic! It was more aligned with the jargon of the tech industry. It helped give us credibility we deserved. It put us in the rooms where strategy was happening. Also, UX… sounds sexy, right?

But the trade-off was real. In fancying up our language, we drifted away from the softer, more human-centered framing that made our work clear to everyone else. If I tell people I do “UX,” most folks outside tech need an explanation. “Oh, it’s in tech. I’m in tech. I’m very smart, you see. It’s a very specialized skill at the intersection of human psychology and technology. Let me ask you this… Do you know the term ‘Cognitive load’?”

But… If I say I specialize in Human–Computer Interaction (although, super clunky), they get it instantly: Ah yes, you make the way people and technology work together easier.

UX was branding, and branding worked. But it came at the cost of clarity — and humanity.

Reclaiming the Language

So yes, it’s time to kill the word “user.” Not because it’s outdated, but because words shape mindsets. If we keep talking about “users,” we’ll keep designing for button clicks. If we start talking about “humans,” we’ll start designing for meaning.

If we want to remain relevant in an AI-driven world, the shift isn’t optional.

The Bottom Line

The call to action is simple: stop designing for users. Start designing for humans. Being a champion of basic UX design patterns and usability best practices is no longer enough.

Because remember, while AI is racing to be more human-like, the one thing it can never actually claim ownership is being human. That’s our domain.