A framework for evaluating the severity and reversibility of user actions to determine appropriate safeguards and confirmation methods. This pattern helps balance friction with protection, ensuring dangerous actions are adequately guarded while keeping routine tasks fluid.
Consequence dimensions
Time to recover
The primary metric for evaluating consequence severity:
- Seconds: Trivial to recreate (typing a word, selecting an option)
- Minutes: Minor effort required (filling a form, configuring settings)
- Hours: Significant work to restore (complex document, detailed configuration)
- Days: Major reconstruction needed (project data, accumulated content)
- Irreversible: Cannot be recovered
Scope of impact
Who is affected by the action:
- Self only: Affects only the actor
- Team: Impacts immediate collaborators
- Organisation: Affects broader groups
- External users: Impacts customers or third parties
- System-wide: Affects all users and operations
Cascade effects
Secondary consequences triggered by the action:
- Isolated: No dependencies or related effects
- Limited cascade: Few predictable dependencies
- Complex cascade: Multiple interrelated effects
- Unpredictable: Consequences difficult to foresee
Confirmation methods by severity
No confirmation
- Instantly reversible (undo available)
- No meaningful data loss
- Part of normal workflow
Passive confirmation
- Easily reversible
- Minor inconvenience if accidental
- Low-frequency mistakes expected
Inline confirmation
- Moderate effort to recover
- Clear user intent likely
- Context should be maintained
Modal interruption
- Significant consequences
- Side effects need explanation
- User should pause to consider
Friction confirmation
- Critical or irreversible
- Wide-reaching impact
- Accidental activation catastrophic
Factors that reduce severity
- Undo (or trash/archive, version history) availability
- Staging/draft mechanisms
- Review before committing
- Scheduled execution
Context-specific adjustments
- User expertise: Adjust confirmation based on user familiarity
- Frequency of action: More common actions may need less friction
Related patterns
Related
- Deletion — its decision tree is this framework projected onto one action — the tree's first question is the time-to-recover dimension
- Saving — staging and drafts are severity reducers: they buy a review step before consequences commit
- Undo — the strongest severity reducer — recovery after the act removes the need for confirmation before it
- Inline confirmation — the mid-ladder rung: enough friction to interrupt autopilot without breaking context
- Checklist — consequences preview before commitment; checklists add structured review
Preceded by
- Next-best action — when accepting a recommendation leads to consequential decisions