I stopped designing for the happy path.
The happy path is when the average user achieves what you want them to achieve under normal circumstances.
There are two distinctions I want to make for this statement.
One is that the happy path is not related to what they want to achieve, but what you want them to achieve. You might think it's the same thing, and although in many cases it might be, in quite a lot of cases it is not.
The other, critically more important, is that nuance of the average user and normal circumstances. I've argued before that the idea of the average user is a myth. And I can't even imagine what normal circumstances are like. Normal for whom? When?
During feature scope discussions, I've never heard of requirements calling for happy paths. It was always the happy path. The implication was that there can be just one happy path.
Of course, we all know there are many ways users will try to accomplish what they want to do in your product. They'll use a mouse. They'll use a keyboard. They'll search for buttons, look at headings, some will read your content, others will skim, others will ask the computer to read it to them. Others, like myself, will use a browser extension to make the reading more distraction-free.
There can be no happy path under any circumstances, normal or otherwise. Not if you want to include everyone. So there's no use designing for one. Because along the way, you'll make a whole lot of people unhappy.