This isn't something I'd normally think about, but I was doing some basic explanation on how Marketo works to someone and they encountered some frustration around how deleting assets work.
As a general rule, if there is an approved version (for emails and landing pages) or if an asset is referenced elsewhere (such as for forms, smart lists, social assets and so on), the asset can't be deleted. That makes total sense from a development point of view, but it's disorienting for new users to not be able to understand why they can't remove the asset—they must click on delete, get the error message (that isn't clear for beginners) and then understand that they must either:
a. Go to Used By, find the asset references, remove them, and then delete and/or
b. Must unapprove the asset first, then are able to delete
The messaging shown in response to an invalid attempt to delete today works but also assumes you understand the meaning behind it. Most new users just don't have that understanding yet.
What I'm suggesting is a better user experience for this: either don't show the delete option until the asset can truly be deleted, or ideally create contextual options. For example, two separate changes that could happen in the drop down are:
- "Unapprove and delete" (if no asset references--perform this task on behalf of the user in one go)
- "Prep for deletion" (show the Used By panel contents and explain that references must be removed)
However, I'm not a UX designer by trade; I'm just suggesting looking at more user-friendly ways to approach removing assets.
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