If your settings page is longer than your actual product, you’re not giving users freedom – you’re handing them your design indecision.
Settings pages that stretch endlessly downward aren’t empowering – they’re exhausting. Each toggle, checkbox, or dropdown represents a decision your team refused to make. It’s your uncertainty passed directly onto the user.
A Symptom, Not a Feature
Every setting you add without clear justification dilutes your core product experience.
Unable to commit to a default theme? You offer users “dark mode,” “light mode,” and even “automatic mode” – each presented equally without recommendation.
Unsure about the right frequency of user notifications? Instead of research and decision-making, you provide daily, weekly, immediate, and custom alerts – piling complexity onto the user rather than addressing it yourself.
Settings aren’t always about user empowerment. Often, they’re an admission that your team didn’t fully resolve the user’s underlying problem.
Real-World Consequences
Consider this common scenario:
A new user opens your settings page for the first time.
Instead of clarity, they encounter:
- “Advanced features” toggles with vague descriptions.
- Notification settings duplicated in multiple locations without context.
- Privacy options hidden beneath unclear labels like “Enhanced Personalization.”
- Feature toggles intended for power users but never clearly explained.
This complexity creates friction, anxiety, and decision paralysis. Users don’t feel more control – they feel confused, worried they’ll choose incorrectly.
Why It Happens
Design indecision is rarely intentional. Typically, it’s incremental:
- Stakeholders want maximum flexibility, without considering cognitive load.
- Legacy features remain active due to fear of alienating a vocal minority.
- Product teams default to settings pages as compromise solutions, avoiding deeper UX conversations.
Each indecision compounds, leading to the chaotic “wall of settings” that users encounter.
Making Hard Decisions
Exceptional products make bold decisions, not timid compromises:
- Spotify – Doesn’t provide 30 different equalizer settings. It curates simple presets that address real user needs.
- Slack – Offers carefully chosen defaults for notifications, allowing adjustments but not overwhelming users with trivial choices.
Decisiveness isn’t hostile to users. It signals clarity, intent, and respect for their cognitive energy.
How to Dismantle the Wall
Begin your settings audit by asking hard questions:
- “Is this setting actively used, or is it ’nice-to-have’?”
- “Does it solve a real problem, or does it merely defer internal disagreement?”
- “Could the product make this decision intelligently without user input?”
Use data, not opinions:
- Track setting usage and sunset rarely used toggles.
- Prioritize settings based on real-world user feedback, not internal assumptions.
And the crucial test:
“If we removed this toggle tomorrow, would users care – or even notice?”
If not, simplify immediately.
Real Benefits of Simplification
The benefits of reducing complexity go beyond aesthetics:
- Reduced cognitive load – Users make fewer unnecessary decisions.
- Improved trust – Users feel confident in a product that makes thoughtful choices on their behalf.
- Lower support costs – Fewer settings mean fewer points of confusion, resulting in reduced support tickets.
Simplicity isn’t just visually appealing. It’s strategically advantageous.
Final Thought
Your settings page shouldn’t be a dumping ground for uncertainty.
Instead, it’s your responsibility to make thoughtful, user-focused decisions.
Stop handing your indecision to users. Start making clear, confident choices that demonstrate you understand – and respect – their real needs.
Clean the wall. Clarify your UX.
Your users will thank you – not for more options, but for fewer, smarter choices.