Our Head of Design: Your UI Looks Great and Still Fails. Here's Why

Your UI can look great and still fail because looking good and working well are two different things, and a screenshot only shows the first one.

We asked Nikola, Thrasker’s Head of Design, why. Here’s what 2026 data shows:

• WebAIM’s 2026 scan of the top one million home pages found accessibility failures on 95.9% of them, and low-contrast text on 83.9%.
• The average home page now has 1,437 elements, up 14.3% in one year.
• In a July 2026 study, about a quarter of the design reasons given by five AI interface tools weren’t implemented in the interfaces they built.

What’s the difference between a UI that looks good and one that works?

A UI that looks good is visually appealing. A UI that works helps people accomplish what they came to do.

Nikola told us:

“I think the biggest difference is that a good-looking interface gets someone’s attention, but a functional interface actually helps them do something.

As designers, we naturally care about aesthetics. We spend a lot of time perfecting layouts, typography, spacing, and all those little details that make something visually appealing. And that’s important. I’m not saying we should ignore any of that.

But I’ve seen plenty of interfaces that look amazing in Figma and completely fall apart when someone actually tries to use them. A button might look great, but nobody understands what it does. A form might be beautifully designed, but people struggle to complete it. Or the navigation might look clean and minimal, but users have no idea where to go.

I think that’s where we sometimes get things wrong as designers. We get so familiar with what we’re creating that we forget someone using it for the first time doesn’t have the same understanding. Good design isn’t just about how something looks. It’s about how easily someone can use it. And ideally, you shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other.”

Which website design mistakes can’t you see in a screenshot?

Basic ones like faint text, unlabeled form fields, and buttons with no label.

WebAIM’s 2026 report scanned the top one million home pages in February 2026 against WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It found:

• 95.9% of home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures, up from 94.8% in 2025.
• Low-contrast text appeared on 83.9% of pages.
• Missing form input labels appeared on 51% of pages.
• Empty buttons, meaning buttons with no text or label, appeared on 30.6% of pages.

Two limits: automated tools catch only some of the problems, and these are top-million home pages, not small business sites specifically. WebAIM also calls rising page complexity a primary concern and says the trend likely reflects heavier reliance on frameworks and AI-assisted coding.

Here’s how Nikola sees it:

“I think some of the biggest mistakes are actually the simplest ones, and they’re often things we overlook because we’re too focused on the visual side.

Take text contrast, for example. Light gray text on a white background might look really clean on your big monitor. But open that same website on your phone, outside in daylight, and suddenly it’s difficult to read. The same goes for buttons that look beautiful but don’t clearly communicate what they do.

I’ve also noticed that we sometimes take minimalism a bit too far. We remove labels, borders, and other elements because we want the interface to look cleaner. But there’s a difference between removing unnecessary elements and removing things that actually help people understand how to use something.

Another thing I see quite often is designers treating desktop as the main experience and mobile as something they just need to adapt afterward. Something might work perfectly on a large screen, but once you start using it on a phone, the experience can be completely different.

And I think that’s the important part. We’re not designing static screens. We’re designing experiences that people use in different environments, on different devices, and in different situations. Just because something looks good in a screenshot doesn’t mean it works well in real life.”

Can an AI-built interface look right and still be wrong?

Yes, and a July 2026 study put numbers on it.

In a research preprint, researchers tested five widely used AI tools that turn plain-English descriptions into interfaces and explain their own design choices. Across 120 interfaces, about 25% of the tools’ design reasons weren’t implemented. For functional requirements, meaning how the interface behaves, that rose to 34%. Four of the five tools implemented 6% or fewer of the functional principles, such as showing system status and recovering from errors.

It’s a preprint that tested five tools on default settings and checked each interface against the tool’s own explanation, not real user results.

Nikola’s take:

“Absolutely. And I think this is becoming an increasingly interesting problem with how quickly AI design and development tools are improving.

I’ve experimented with AI-generated interfaces myself, and one thing I’ve noticed is how convincing they can look at first glance. You give an AI tool a prompt, and within seconds, you have something that looks like a finished product. The layout is there, the typography looks decent, there are buttons, cards, forms, and sometimes even animations.

But looking like a finished product and actually being one are two completely different things. A button might look clickable but do absolutely nothing. A form might look complete but have no proper validation. Or the interface might give users no indication that something is loading or that an action was successful. And these are things you don’t necessarily notice when you’re just looking at a screenshot.

AI is getting really good at generating interfaces. That doesn’t automatically mean it’s good at designing experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I think these tools are incredibly useful. They help us move faster, experiment with ideas, and build things that would have taken significantly more time before. But I think the mistake is assuming that because something looks polished, it’s ready to use.

AI can also give you a very convincing explanation of why it made certain design decisions. But just because the explanation sounds reasonable doesn’t mean those decisions were actually implemented correctly.

That’s why I think the designer’s role is still incredibly important. Someone needs to understand the problem, question the decisions, and make sure the final experience actually works. AI can help you build something faster, but it doesn’t remove the responsibility of making sure you’ve built the right thing.”

How can you check whether your UI works, not just looks good?

Try these four quick checks. This is our own checklist, not a finding from the studies.

1. Scan your most important pages

Free tools like WAVE and contrast checkers can flag:

• Faint text
• Missing form labels
• Unlabeled buttons

Fix these first. Just six common problems account for 96% of the errors WebAIM found in 2026.

Nikola explains:

“I think accessibility is one of those things that should be part of the design process from the beginning, not something we check right before launching a website. And the good thing is that you don’t need to be an accessibility expert to identify some of the most common problems.

Start with the basics. Check your text contrast, make sure your buttons have clear labels, and make sure people understand what they’re supposed to enter in a form. These might seem like small details, but they can make a huge difference.

I always try to remind myself that just because something is easy for me to read or understand doesn’t mean it’s easy for everyone else.”

2. Check that it’s easy to tap and navigate

Check that:

Buttons and links are big enough to tap. The WCAG 2.2 standard sets the minimum at 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with certain exceptions.

When you move through the page with a keyboard, the item you’re on doesn’t disappear behind something like a sticky header.

His advice:

“One thing I always recommend is to stop looking at the design in Figma and actually open the website on your phone. Try navigating it with one hand. Click the buttons, fill out a form, and scroll through the content.

You’ll quickly notice things that weren’t obvious when designing on a desktop. Maybe the buttons are too small, maybe something is difficult to reach, or maybe the navigation just doesn’t feel natural.

I think we sometimes forget that people aren’t using websites in the same perfect conditions we’re designing them in. They’re using them while walking, sitting outside, or doing five other things at the same time. The goal isn’t to make the interface work perfectly in Figma. It’s to make it work in the real world.”

3. Make sure it behaves, not just looks right

If a template or an AI tool built it, check that it:

• Shows when something is loading or saved
• Lets you go back
• Explains how to fix an error

The July 2026 study found AI tools fell shortest here.

Nikola adds:

“I think this is especially important now that we’re seeing more and more AI-generated websites and applications. A lot of people focus on how the interface looks in its default state, but that’s only one part of the experience.

What happens when someone clicks a button? What happens when something is loading? What happens when a form fails or someone makes a mistake? These are all design decisions, too.

I’ve seen interfaces that look completely finished until you actually start interacting with them. And that’s something I think designers need to pay more attention to.

A good interface shouldn’t just work when everything goes according to plan. It should also help people understand what’s happening when something goes wrong. If someone clicks a button and has no idea whether anything happened, that’s a design problem, not just a development problem.”

4. Try the one task that matters

Book, buy, or fill out the contact form:

• On your phone
• Again, using only a keyboard

In his words:

“This is probably one of my favorite ways to identify usability problems, and it’s incredibly simple. Give someone who has never seen the website a task and just watch what happens. Ask them to find something, complete a form, or navigate to a specific page.

And the most important part is to stay quiet. Don’t explain where to click. Don’t tell them what something means. Don’t guide them through the process.

I know it’s tempting, especially when you’re the person who designed it. But the moment you start explaining how the interface works, you’re no longer testing whether the design communicates clearly.

Pay attention to where they hesitate, where they get confused, and where they make mistakes. Those moments are incredibly valuable because they show you the difference between how you think the interface works and how someone actually experiences it. If you need to explain how someone should use your interface, there’s probably something you can improve.”

Final thoughts

A great-looking UI earns a second of attention. A working one lets people finish.

Nikola’s closing thought:

“I think we’re entering a really interesting period for design. Creating something visually impressive is becoming easier than ever. We have incredible design tools, component libraries, templates, and now AI tools that can generate entire interfaces in seconds.

And I think that’s great. But it also means that simply making something look good is becoming less of a differentiator.

The real value of a designer is understanding why something should be designed a certain way, not just knowing how to make it look good. It’s understanding the people who will use the product, the problems they’re trying to solve, and the decisions that make their experience easier.

And I don’t think we should stop caring about aesthetics. Quite the opposite. Beautiful interfaces are important. They create trust, communicate personality, and make products more enjoyable to use. But beauty shouldn’t come at the expense of functionality.

At the end of the day, nobody visits a website just to admire how perfectly you’ve aligned your buttons. They visit because they want to accomplish something.

A great UI makes people want to use your product. A great UX makes them want to come back. And I think that’s what we should all be designing for.”