Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with an exciting opportunity: build a two-sided marketplace platform. The budget was substantial, the technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Here's why — and what this taught me about the real meaning of lovability in UX design in 2025.
The client came to me excited about the no-code revolution and new AI tools like Lovable. They weren't wrong — technically, you can build complex platforms with these tools. But their core statement revealed the problem: "We want to see if our idea is worth pursuing."
They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand. Just an idea and enthusiasm. This experience reinforced what I've learned after 7 years building websites: lovability isn't about features — it's about solving real problems for real people.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why AI-powered design tools miss the point of true UX lovability
The counterintuitive approach I recommended instead of building
How to validate lovability before you write a single line of code
Real examples of lovable UX from my client work
A practical framework for designing experiences people actually want to use
This isn't another article about AI MVP builders or design trends. It's about the fundamental shift in thinking that separates products people tolerate from products they genuinely love.
Reality Check
What the design industry gets wrong about lovability
The design industry has fallen in love with the idea of "lovability" without understanding what it actually means. Walk into any design conference or scroll through Dribbble, and you'll hear the same mantras repeated:
"Delightful micro-interactions create emotional connections" — designers obsess over button animations and loading states, believing that polish equals lovability. The result? Beautiful interfaces that users interact with once and never return to.
"AI tools democratize design, making lovable products accessible to everyone" — platforms like Bubble, Framer, and even specialized tools promise that anyone can build "lovable" experiences. The underlying assumption is that lovability comes from the building process itself.
"User research and personas drive lovable design" — teams spend months creating detailed user personas and journey maps, then wonder why their "user-centered" product fails to gain traction in the real world.
"Aesthetic beauty equals user love" — the most common mistake is confusing visual appeal with genuine utility. Products that look amazing in portfolios but solve problems nobody actually has.
"Feature richness creates stickiness" — the belief that more functionality automatically translates to more user engagement and love.
This conventional wisdom exists because it's easier to measure and teach. You can quantify micro-interaction timing, count features, and grade visual aesthetics. What you can't easily measure is whether someone actually needs what you're building.
The industry has confused craft with purpose. Beautiful craft can enhance a purposeful product, but it can never save a purposeless one. This is where most "lovable" UX projects fail — they optimize for the wrong metrics entirely.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When the client approached me about building their marketplace platform, they had everything mapped out: user flows, feature lists, even color schemes. They'd spent months in planning mode, convinced that the right combination of AI tools and design thinking would create something users would love.
"We want to test if our idea works," they told me, pointing to their comprehensive wireframes. "With tools like Lovable and Bubble, we can build this quickly and see if people engage."
The red flag wasn't their enthusiasm — it was their fundamental misunderstanding of what creates lovability. They were treating UX design like a product assembly line: add the right components, optimize the flows, polish the interactions, and users will naturally fall in love.
But here's what they actually had: zero existing customers, no waiting list, no proof that anyone wanted this solution. They were essentially asking me to build a beautiful store in an empty mall, then wondering why nobody would shop there.
This reminded me of a pattern I'd seen repeatedly in my freelance work. Companies would come to me wanting to build "the Uber for X" or "the Airbnb for Y," convinced that replicating successful UX patterns would automatically create user love. They'd point to sleek onboarding flows and intuitive navigation as proof their idea would work.
The harsh reality? Most users don't care about your onboarding flow if they don't understand why they need your product in the first place. They won't appreciate your micro-interactions if your solution doesn't solve a problem they actually have.
I realized that this client — like many others — was confusing usability with lovability. Usability is about making something easy to use. Lovability is about making something people actually want to use. There's a massive difference.
That's when I made the decision that surprised them: I recommended they don't build anything yet.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of accepting their project and building what they wanted, I shared something that initially shocked them: "If you're truly testing market demand, your MVP should take one day to build — not three months."
Yes, even with AI and no-code tools, building a functional two-sided platform takes significant time. But here's what most founders miss: your first MVP shouldn't be a product at all.
I recommended a completely different approach:
Day 1: Create a simple landing page or Notion doc explaining the value proposition. No fancy design, no complex user flows — just clear communication of what problem you're solving and for whom.
Week 1: Start manual outreach to potential users on both sides of the marketplace. Don't build matching algorithms — be the algorithm. Connect suppliers and buyers manually through email and phone calls.
Week 2-4: Manually facilitate transactions via email, WhatsApp, or phone. Track every interaction, every friction point, every moment of delight or frustration.
Month 2: Only after proving demand manually, consider building automation for the parts that actually matter to users.
This approach reveals something crucial about lovability in UX design: it's not about the interface — it's about the value delivered. Users fall in love with solutions that solve real problems, not with beautiful interfaces that solve imaginary ones.
The manual approach forced them to answer fundamental questions: Who exactly needs this? What specific problem does it solve? How painful is that problem? How do people currently solve it? Are they willing to change their behavior for a better solution?
These questions can't be answered by building better user flows or adding more AI features. They can only be answered by talking to real people and solving real problems manually first.
My framework challenged the entire premise of their project. Instead of building first and hoping for love later, I recommended loving customers first and building second. This is the counterintuitive truth about lovable UX: the most lovable products often start with no product at all.
Manual First
Start with humans, not interfaces — validate the need before designing the solution
Problem Validation
Test demand manually before building any interface — if you can't solve it manually, software won't help
Interface Timing
Build the UI last, not first — once you understand the real user workflow through manual processes
User Love Mapping
Track emotional responses during manual interactions — these moments become your UX design priorities
The outcome validated everything I suspected about the relationship between building and lovability. Rather than spending three months and significant budget building a platform that might fail, they invested one month in manual validation.
What they discovered fundamentally changed their approach. The initial marketplace concept wasn't quite right — but through manual interactions, they uncovered a different, more specific problem that people actually cared about solving.
More importantly, they learned that lovability comes from solving real problems elegantly, not from elegant solutions to imaginary problems. By the time they were ready to build, they had a clear understanding of what users actually wanted, which interactions mattered most, and which features were unnecessary complexity.
This experience reinforced my belief that in the age of AI and no-code tools, the constraint isn't building — it's knowing what to build and for whom. The most lovable products aren't necessarily the most technically sophisticated; they're the ones that solve the right problems for the right people at the right time.
When you start with manual validation, you're not just testing demand — you're identifying the specific moments where users experience delight, frustration, or confusion. These emotional touchpoints become the foundation for truly lovable UX design.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Lovability isn't visual — It comes from solving problems people actually have, not from beautiful interfaces
Manual validation reveals truth — If you can't deliver value manually, software won't magically create it
Emotional mapping matters more than user flows — Track when people feel frustrated, delighted, or confused during real interactions
Building last prevents waste — Design the interface after you understand the actual workflow, not before
AI tools amplify strategy, not replace it — No-code platforms make building faster, but they can't tell you what to build
Distribution beats features — Users love products they can find and use, not products with the most capabilities
Problem-first thinking wins — Start with customer pain points, not solution possibilities
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Validate demand through manual customer success before building automation
Focus on user acquisition strategy alongside product development
Design onboarding around real user goals, not feature tours
Test lovability through retention metrics, not signup numbers
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Validate product-market fit before optimizing checkout flows
Focus on conversion optimization based on real customer behavior
Design product pages around actual purchase decision factors
Test user love through repeat purchase rates, not first-time conversions