Make destructive actions hard to do by accident

Why this rule exists

Some actions cannot be undone, or are painful to reverse, and those deserve friction that ordinary actions do not. The delete that wipes a year of work, the send that cannot be recalled, the irreversible change buried next to a harmless one, each is a trap if it is as easy to trigger as a routine tap. Good design puts a small, deliberate barrier in front of destruction, a confirmation, a required second step, an undo window, so that doing serious harm takes intention rather than a slip. This is not about distrusting the user; it is about respecting that everyone, including the careful, occasionally mis-taps, and the cost of a mis-tap should be proportional to its consequences. The best protection is often reversibility itself, an undo that makes the barrier unnecessary, but where undo is impossible, friction and clarity stand in its place. Easy things should be easy, and dangerous things should take a beat.