Your first real user will find the thing you were too close to see.

The first version of adding a recipe to Ladle took 6 pages.

Every field. Every step. Manual approval at each one. It felt thorough. It was exhausting.

Then a beta user tried it.

They made it through the first two pages and stopped. Not because they were confused. Because it just felt like too much work for something that should be simple.

Now it’s one click. Same data, auto-filled, done.

We also grouped every import method under a single button based on the same feedback. URL, photo, manual entry. One place instead of three.

The product didn’t change. The friction did.