Hold-to-confirm turns the gesture into the safeguard: a ring fills over roughly 300ms of a held press, replacing a modal, and releasing early cancels the action entirely.
Name the action on the button itself. Delete project / Keep project beats a generic Yes / No, because the verb is the warning and nobody reads 'Are you sure?'.
Never place a destructive button where confirm usually lives. Muscle memory clicks primary spots blind, so moving delete elsewhere keeps autopilot from reaching it.
Red is a budget: spend it on destruction only. A red logout button cries wolf, and then the real delete looks routine.
Bury deletion in a bordered, labeled danger zone at the bottom of the page. Geography itself becomes friction that slows the hand.
Give irreversible deletions a cooldown: schedule it with a grace period (for example 14 days to cancel). Time is the last line of defense.
Do / Don't
Do: Name the destructive action on the button so the verb itself does the warning.
Do: Reserve red for destructive actions only, and add friction like a hold gesture or a danger zone.
Do: Give irreversible deletions a cancelable cooldown before they take effect.
Don't: Place destructive buttons where the confirm button usually sits.
Don't: Rely on a generic 'Are you sure?' dialog that nobody actually reads.
Don't: Spread red across logout, badges, and alerts until delete looks routine.
The Design System Blueprint
An 11-page visual guide to consistent, scalable UI: colors, typography, spacing, components, motion.
