Meeting your own doppelgänger always triggers a sense of discomfort. Humans naturally strive for uniqueness, yet technology has served us a world full of digital clones. And it’s not just about advanced AI avatars, but something we see every day—app interfaces that have started to look exactly the same.
Whether opening a banking app, ordering food from a restaurant, or buying a ticket, I increasingly feel that although the logo at the top of the screen has changed, I’m still looking at the exact same product. A gray background, the same rounded tiles, a twin bottom navigation layout, and the same font. The digital world has become painfully repetitive. In the name of usability, we have killed brand identity.
How did we get here? For years, the UX industry mindlessly echoed the idea that an interface should work quietly, smoothly, and without demanding attention. We were supposed to make life easier, so we smoothed down all the edges. We turned to the exact same Apple and Google guidelines, sat down with the same Figma libraries, and started mass-producing products that differ from one another only by the hue of the primary color in their Design System.
The problem is that in this rush toward ideal usability, we threw the baby out with the bathwater. When a process becomes 100% predictable and stripped of any character, the brand ceases to exist in the customer's mind. It becomes interchangeable. Users don't build relationships—they simply “get things done” inside a soulless digital machine. And when a competitor enters the market with an identical interface, price becomes the sole criterion for choice, rather than attachment to the experience.
Designing mature UX isn't about blindly copying patterns and blending into the background. The real challenge begins when you can meet accessibility and usability standards while weaving your own character into the interface—an accent, a unique voice tone, or a subtle detail that lets users know who they're interacting with.
A better interface isn't the one that looks like every other on the market. A better one solves the user's problem while giving them the feeling that they are engaging with something thoughtful, alive, and distinctive.
It’s time to break out of the digital matrix era and start designing branded experiences once again. Don't just repeat proven patterns, even if they work. Strive to be at least a little different—because only then will our work have meaning and get noticed.
