Interaction Engineering · 10 / 10

Interaction Acceptance Checklist: The Second List Before Launch

Taste Engineering's finale shipped the first list for "looks good"; this chapter ships the second for "works well." Looks handle the first glance; usefulness handles every day after—and interaction bugs hide deeper: screenshots won't show them; you have to click. Fourteen items, one action each—run them before you sign off.

14-item listAcceptance drillThree-list relayFurther reading
How to catch interaction bugs at acceptance

Taste acceptance can use screenshots; interaction acceptance needs hands-on clicks: throttle the network, empty the list, press the dangerous button, walk the flow end to end. The 14 items below are that action list, grouped in this chapter's nine-lesson order—each line can go straight to AI as a rejection reason. Check progress lives locally; bring a new product next time and keep going.

Try it · Interaction acceptance checklist: walk all 14
Interaction acceptance checklist 0 / 14
States · 3 items
Error prevention & reversibility · 3 items
Flow · 2 items
Conventions & controls · 3 items
Copy · 2 items
Considerateness · 1 item
This browser has local storage disabled (maybe private mode). Checks still work, but progress won't survive a refresh.

Source of the last item: About Face 4, Chapter 8 compares good software to a considerate person and lists a considerateness checklist—"good memory" is the cheapest, highest-yield line. Making users re-pick a city or retype an invoice title is software playing amnesiac.

Acceptance drill · five interaction accidents hide on this page

The list is cold; the drill is hot. This cloud-notes app is built at real "AI one-shot" quality—five interaction accidents hit five lessons in this chapter. Use the checklist as a map; tap when you find one.

Find five interaction accidents 0 / 5
Hint: feedback style, button placement, flow steps, control looks, button copy—one mess each.
notes.example.com
My notes Select all Clear all
Weekly notes 0810
Yesterday 22:41 · 1.2k words Work
Reading notes: About Face
Sat 09:15 · 3.4k words Reading
Shopping list
Fri 18:02 · 0.1k words Life
New note · Step 1 / 4: pick note type
Next Double-click to share this page
Action completed
Your request has been processed by the system
Confirm
Start with the loudest flaw. Can't find it? Flip back to the matching checklist group.
Considerateness snap judgment · three quickies from Ch. 8

That considerateness item expands into Chapter 8's full list: considerate software cares about preferences, answers asks, remembers, and doesn't dump its own problems on users. Three real scenes—judge considerate or rude.

Considerate or rude 0 / 3
Quiz: how to write a rejection reason
Acceptance failed—which rejection reason does AI fix most accurately? Single choice
AInteraction isn't great—optimize it more
BDelete has no undo, only a confirm dialog. Change to: do it now + 5s undo toast + trash for 30 days
CUX needs work—look at big-tech products
DRedo the whole thing; watch the details this time
Three lists, one pre-launch set

All three series' lists are here: Taste for looks, Interaction for usefulness, Psychology for feel. Run them in order before launch—none substitutes for another.

First · Looks
Taste acceptance checklist: hierarchy, spacing, restraint, consistency, detail—15 items on the mock.
Loading progress
Second · Works
This page's interaction acceptance checklist: states, error prevention, flow, conventions, copy, considerateness—14 items you click through.
0 / 14
Third · Feels
Psychology's fourteen pre-launch questions: perceived performance, trust calibration, honeymoon cliff—14 heartfelt asks.
Run through Psychology
Recap · nine lessons in three lines
Spot

Lessons 1–5: four handles: are the three states complete? Are dangerous actions reversible? Can the flow lose another step? Did anyone invent odd interactions? To judge usefulness, click in that order.

Detail

Lessons 6–7: UI parts: mutually exclusive radio buttons, multi-select checkboxes, instant toggles, dropdown only past one screen; button verbs name the consequence; labels speak the user's language.

Translate

Lessons 8–9: write it for AI: brief with persona + goal + scenario; the spec lists all five states, nails edge cases, spells out error prevention—together they're the full prompt.

Further reading · outward from this chapter
Books
About Face 4 (Alan Cooper et al.)
This chapter's source text. Don't stop at Ch. 17: goal-oriented method in Ch. 1–4, the considerateness list in Ch. 8, and orchestration & error handling in Ch. 11–15 all deserve a full pass.
Don't Make Me Think (Steve Krug)
The thinnest usability classic (Chinese edition: 《点石成金》). The title is the thesis—two hours to finish; pair with this chapter's flow-restraint lesson.
Microinteractions (Dan Saffer)
Splits one interaction into trigger, rules, feedback, loops. States and feedback from this chapter get finer ticks here.
Principles & tools
Nielsen's ten usability heuristics
A forty-year-old acceptance frame that still holds—many items on this chapter's list map one-to-one.
Apple HIG Patterns chapter
How a major platform specifies loading, undo, confirm—and a reference library for conventions.
Key Takeaways
✓

Interaction acceptance needs clicks: throttle the network, empty the list, press the dangerous button, walk the full path—screenshots won't catch interaction bugs.

✓

Use the 14 items as rejection copy: send the failing line to AI verbatim—ten times faster than "optimize it more."

✓

Three lists, one set: looks (Taste), works (this chapter), feels (Psychology)—run in order before launch.

Source: Original to Xiaoshan Academy's Interaction Engineering series; considerateness list from About Face 4, Chapter 8; other criteria cited per lesson (Alan Cooper et al.).