When a Feature You’re Proud Of Turns Out to Be a Mistake

It’s a familiar story in product design:
You build something that feels right. It solves a clear need. It’s scoped, designed, and shipped.

Everything looks good, until it doesn’t.

The Feature That Went Sideways

Recently, we designed a new feature for a client.

• It addressed a clear user problem.

• The development team built it quickly.

• We launched it without issues.

At first, everything seemed to work.
Users began using the feature, and the initial feedback was neutral-to-positive.

But over time, we started noticing cracks.
The feature’s core logic didn’t actually make sense in the context of the product. Worse, it touched critical parts of the app. Sections that many other flows depended on.

Fixing it became risky and painful.
We eventually patched a safer version that worked better, but it wasn’t ideal.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

We didn’t just lose development hours.
We lost momentum, team energy, and some internal trust.

Here’s what went wrong:

1. We Didn’t Map the System Well Enough

We underestimated how the new feature would interact with the rest of the app.

• We didn’t trace all the downstream effects.

• We didn’t think deeply about what could break.

2. We Built on Assumptions

The feature’s logic was based on guesses.

• We didn’t test it early with users.

• We didn’t ask real people what they actually needed.

What We Do Differently Now

Mistakes like this leave scars, but they also shape better habits.
Here’s what’s changed in our process:

🗺 Map first.
Before designing, we map out every part of the product that might be affected. Dependencies, connections, side effects, all of it.

👥 Validate early.
Even two quick user calls can surface critical insights. We make sure to sanity-check ideas with real people, early and often.

Design Is a Thinking Job

Design isn’t just about layouts and components. It’s about systems, trade-offs, and thinking ahead.

Bad design decisions don’t just lead to poor UX.
They can slow down your entire team, introduce risk, and cost you trust.