What is Rage Clicking and Why Should You Care?

How Elevate Uses Real User Data Patterns to Deliver a Better Experience

At Elevate, we believe that a great user experience isn’t just about clean design and modern visuals. That’s a huge part of it, but it’s also about empathy, intention, and obsessively fine-tuning even the tiniest details. One of the most important signals we look at? Rage clicks.

Yes, rage clicks—those rapid-fire, repeated clicks on the same part of the screen when a user gets frustrated. Maybe a button doesn’t respond as expected. Maybe a message is hidden out of view. Whatever the reason, rage clicks are more than just digital temper tantrums—they’re data, and we take them seriously.

We Watch. We Listen. We Improve.

Every month, our design team rotates through different areas of the Elevate platform and presents their findings to the product leadership team. They pull data from tools like Datadog and session replay analytics to dig into how users actually interact with our screens. We’re not watching people’s actual interactions, but we’re looking for patterns.

We look for what’s working and what isn’t. Some of the actions we look for is rage clicks, error clicks, dead clicks, and the kind of behavior that shows something’s not quite right. Then we ask the most important question: How can we fix it?

Real Example: Claims Submission

One of our recent design reviews flagged an issue during claims submission. Users were clicking “Submit” repeatedlyand nothing seemed to happen.

When we reviewed the sessions, we discovered the error message was being shown above the fold for some users, where they couldn’t immediately see it. So naturally, they kept clicking, thinking something was broken.

Our team saw the rage clicks, investigated the session, and immediately made adjustments. That small fix led to a big reduction in confusion—and a better, more intuitive experience for every user who followed.

Focusing on What Actually Matters to Users

By identifying the areas with the highest reported frustration rates, we’re able to focus our time and resources on what’s actually important to our users. We let the data guide our focus, so rather than guessing, we’re using real analytics to repair spots causing smashed buttons.

Perhaps most importantly, this approach helps us uncover the issues users don’t call in about. We’ve all experienced small moments of friction that quietly chip away at the experience. Instead of relying on someone to report the problem or filling in the blanks with assumptions, we’re using hard data to find and fix the spots that consistently cause confusion. It’s proactive problem solving, instead of reactive guesswork.

User Privacy is Always Protected

Please know we’re not actually watching people’s screens. We see behavior patterns, not personal information.

We know trust is non-negotiable, especially when it comes to identifying information. All data fields are automatically masked, including sensitive data like names, medical info, and account numbers. That means our design teams do not have access to personal details, design reviews never see or record users’ personal information, and user behavior is never associated with an actual person. We all value our privacy, and Elevate takes user protection seriously. Our goal is simple: to understand where users are getting stuck so we can fix those spots and improve the experience.

Designing with Empathy

This kind of design isn’t a one-time exercise. With every new feature, every redesign, and every monthly check-in, our design team asks:

·       How can we make this easier for our users?

·       What are people really doing—not just what we think they should do?

·       How can we remove problems before they become frustration?

At the end of the day, Elevate’s goal is to make complex benefit accounts easy to use. That means obsessing over everything—from major flows down to micro-moments.

Including rage clicks.

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About Amanda Richter

With a strong background in product design and user experience, Amanda brings deep expertise to Elevate’s product strategy. Amanda previously held senior product roles at Optum and ConnectYourCare and has her master’s in human centered computing.

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