Word: Sloth

Definition: The avoidance of work and that feeling of "I don't care." Essentially, the idea that people only want to put in the most minimal amount of effort in order to achieve desired outcomes online.

Thoughts: The discussion here does not revolve around whether people are inherently lazy and instead speaks to how users feel about online tasks. Users are becoming more accustomed to great user experiences and are demanding easy-to-use, intuitive interfaces as a result. Steve Krug hit the nail on the head in his classic UX book  Don't Make Me Think. If there is an established way of completing certain tasks online, users will likely become agitated or simply not complete the task if it is made to seem too difficult. It all comes back to the user experience! When unnecessary effort is exhorted, putting laziness aside, the user is now in a new headset and this new frame of mind can negatively impact the experience as a whole.

Question: In what situations is it okay to push the user to exhort more effort? In these cases, what, if any, are the positive effects this can have on the user experience?