UX Best Practices: How FrankenProducts Happen When Design Isn’t Empowered
- alexandralevchuk
- Dec 2
- 3 min read
Key Takeaways
Products don’t fail because they’re complex — they fail because design wasn’t empowered.
When every team contributes their own “tiny tweak,” your product becomes inconsistent and clunky.
Clear design ownership creates clarity, speed, and scalability.
To avoid a FrankenProduct, teams must align on one vision, one priority, and one source of truth.
Why UX Best Practices Fail When Everyone Is Designing Except the Designer
Building a clean, intuitive product has less to do with trends and more to do with UX best practices that teams actually follow. But most products don’t fail from lack of skill — they fail because everyone is designing except the designer.
It always starts the same way.
A quick idea from Sales. A simple tweak from the PM. A copy change from Marketing. A layout adjustment from Engineering. And a “can we squeeze this in?” from Leadership.
None of these decisions feel harmful in the moment. But together? They slowly stitch your product into something unrecognizable.
A FrankenProduct.
A creature built from good intentions, scattered decisions, and inconsistent thinking.Something designed by everyone — except the actual designer.
The Hidden Ways FrankenProducts Are Created (and Why UX Best Practices Alone Can’t Save You)
After 11 years in design leadership, I’ve seen teams try to fix chaos by adding more rules or more UX best practices, but none of them work without a single source of truth. UX breaks when ownership breaks:
Sales invents features mid-call
They promise things that don’t exist yet, and suddenly the design must bend to close deals.
Product managers redraw components
Not because it’s better — but because it’s faster.
Marketing rewrites UX copy “for conversions”
Except conversion drops because clarity disappears.
Engineering rearranges layouts for technical convenience
Shipping becomes the priority, not usability.
Leadership wants everything, everywhere, all at once
Which guarantees a bloated, inconsistent experience.
Meanwhile, the designer is quietly thinking: “Why is everyone designing except the designer?”
The Real Problem: Lack of Design Ownership
Products don’t break because teams lack talent. They break because teams lack alignment.
When each department builds its own version of “good,” you don’t get innovation.
You get inconsistency.
And inconsistency feels like:
Slow
Clunky
Random
Disjointed
Impossible to scale
Not because the product is bad — but because the experience is fragmented.
The Cure for FrankenProducts: Design Empowerment
Here’s what healthy product teams actually do differently:
1️⃣ One Real Priority
If everything is P1, nothing is P1.
2️⃣ One Source of Truth
A design system. A component library. A shared understanding of the rules.
3️⃣ One Clear Product Vision
A north star everyone respects.
4️⃣ One Designer Who Owns the Experience
Not a committee of five departments. Not a last-second opinion train.
5️⃣ One Important Question Before Adding Anything:
Does this help the user — or just someone's opinion?
This one question alone will save your product.
Clean Products Aren’t Luck — They’re Leadership
Intentionally designed products feel:
Faster
Smarter
More intuitive
More trustworthy
Easier to adopt
Because they were created with clarity, not chaos.
If you don’t design your product intentionally, your product will design itself accidentally.
And that’s how FrankenProducts are born.
If you want a cleaner, faster, more scalable product, return to UX best practices that prioritize clarity, consistency, and intentional design.
P.S. What part of your product feels the most “stitched together” right now?