Chapter 11. The User's State: Distraction and the Price of Experience

Experience is not something given. It is something billed. The first screen is the most expensive checkout counter.

In the previous chapter, we chose the character who would welcome this person. We decided whether to put the dog or the cat forward and which sensory interpreter would stand on the first screen. But we left out one thing. In what state does the person who meets that character arrive?

The user in a planning document is always in perfect condition. They sit in a quiet room, hold the device in both hands, stare straight at the screen, and savor every detail of the first-screen presentation. They watch the character entrance scene we so carefully constructed from beginning to end. This user does not exist. A real user hooks one hand around a subway strap and taps the screen with the other. They hear the person next to them talking on the phone, keep an eye on the station where they must get off, and still have the afterimage of the short-form video they were just watching in their head. To them, the entrance scene we labored over is merely “something I want to skip quickly.” At that first screen, they are billed for time, cognition, pride, and trust all at once, and with that bill in hand, they decide within seconds whether to leave or stay.

No matter how good an interpreter a character may be, the interpretation scatters into empty air if the person receiving it is not listening. That is why the user's state is the next thing to examine after the character. Chapter 12 will unfold the list of experiences they want from the screen. Here, we first look at the state in which they arrive and what costs they pay in that state.

The Same Screen, Seen from a Different Place

Enter an imaginary character game. Suppose we designed the first screen this way: gentle music plays, three characters appear one by one and each offers a greeting, a short piece of world-building narration follows, and then the user is asked to choose a character. Viewed in a meeting room, this screen is warm, considerate, painstakingly made, and hard to fault.

Now view the same screen somewhere else. During the packed evening commute, someone idly taps a link a friend sent and opens our game for the first time. Music starts, but they have no earphones in, so they mute it. While the three characters appear in sequence, they tap the screen twice because they want to move on quickly. During the three seconds of world-building narration, they glance into the next car and back. At the character-selection screen, not knowing who anyone is, they tap whichever one is in the middle. The emotional flow we designed second by second was, to them, one long delay between “loading” and “tapping.”

The screen was the same, yet the meeting-room user and subway user underwent entirely different things. The meeting-room user received the experience we gave them. The subway user had no room to pay for it. The difference lies not in the screen but in their state. Users do not arrive in the state we assumed.

The problem of state becomes even clearer in MEJE Aidong World. We picture a fan calmly concentrating as they choose colors and name the dog Aidong on the customization screen. In reality, the fan cares for Aidong one-handed on the commuter subway, in a short break, or in bed before sleep—inside a distracted gap. That is why Aidong World's first customization does not spread color, shape, and name across one screen. It places only one decision on each screen, so even a distracted fan can complete Aidong by choosing just one thing at a time.

This chapter has spent so long on state for one reason: the price of the costs we are about to discuss changes with that state.

Experience Has a Price

The word that must stop us here is “free.” We think we “give” users their first experience, as if presenting a good experience as a gift. From the user's side, however, experience is not received but paid for. They must surrender something before the experience can begin. This book calls that something the price of experience.

The price is not only money. The costs a user pays on the first screen can be divided into roughly seven kinds. Let us take them one by one.

First is the cost of attention. Understanding the screen, choosing what to tap, and remembering what was just shown all consume cognitive effort. A user's attention is a limited wallet. When the first screen asks and shows several things at once, that wallet empties quickly. The more explanation there is and the more densely a screen is packed with information, the higher this cost becomes.

Second is the cost of time: time spent waiting for a download, watching a loading screen, following a tutorial, and repeating the same action. The user pays time before tasting the first bit of fun. If we push a long explanation at them before they begin, they leave having spent time without ever seeing the fun.

Third is opportunity cost. While our game is open, they give up YouTube, short-form video, and messages from friends. In the two-minute gap available to them, we stand in the same line and compete with all of those things. If our first screen feels stifling, they immediately leave thinking, “I could just watch something else,” because the thing they gave up remains almost within reach.

Fourth is the burden of being seen by others: the social cost. If the moment they start, a leaderboard pins their name at the bottom, they are pushed to share their first action, or they must invite a friend to continue, the user abandons the wish to merely look around and steps back. A newcomer is reluctant to stand before others until they can show that they are competent.

Fifth is the cost of failure. If users lose, get stuck, or make a mistake on their first attempt, they pay in the feeling that they are stupid. If that feeling is too expensive, closing the window is cheaper than trying again. How the first failure is handled determines whether they will give it one more try.

Sixth is the cost of personal information: creating an account, granting permissions, and handing over a phone number or email address. If we ask for their information before they even know whether the game is good, it feels as though they are being asked for identification before they have opened their wallet.

Seventh is the psychological cost of monetization. The very act of deciding whether to spend money is a burden. If product bundles cover the screen and discount timers flash from day one, the user must decide “Is this place obsessed with money?” before enjoying the game. The burden of making that judgment is itself a cost.

All seven costs share one feature: they are most expensive on the first screen. When the user has not yet had any fun in the game—when they have the weakest reason to pay—we often charge the most all at once. Sign up. Grant permission. Watch the tutorial. Invite friends. Look at products. People do not stay where they have received nothing but are asked to pay for everything.

And these costs have no fixed list price. The same screen is cheap in a meeting room and expensive on the subway. An attention cost worth a penny to someone with both hands free in a quiet room multiplies for someone with one hand amid phone-call noise. Guidance delivered only through audio to someone with sound muted makes them search for the same information visually and adds a time cost. For someone counting the stops until they get off, the opportunity cost of a thirty-second presentation doubles. In a packed car, one flamboyant failure animation adds a social cost to the cost of failure. When calculating costs, therefore, do not look only at the screen. Look at the state in which that screen is viewed. This is precisely why we drew the subway user at such length. Chapter 16 will separately address how to redesign the screen itself for a state of inattention. In this chapter, hold firmly to just one fact: the price moves with the user's state.

One principle should be stated in advance: ask for only one thing at a time. When the first screen presents something new for users to learn, slice it very thin. Give them one new thing on one screen and another on the next. It is like dividing a large lump-sum bill into installments. A user's attention wallet can bear costs divided this way; bill everything at once, and the wallet closes.

Stamina and Gacha: Conventions That Made Costs Seem Natural

Since this chapter concerns costs, let us bring two game conventions to the checkpoint: stamina or hearts that limit action, and gacha that gives rewards by probability.

First, stamina. In many mobile games, users cannot play indefinitely. Each action consumes stamina or hearts. When it runs out, they must wait for it to recover over time or pay to refill it. Where did this convention come from? From live-operations design intended to bring users back every day, prevent them from staying too long at once, and generate revenue by letting them pay to skip the wait. Gamers understand this framework. They enter when stamina has refilled, spend it, and leave, reading that rhythm as the game's breathing.

Many newcomers do not share this agreement. Just as they are beginning to have fun, a screen says, “You have used all your attempts for today.” They interpret it as the game throwing them out. If they are stopped at the exact moment their desire to continue has begun, that desire is more likely to cool on the spot than last until the next day. Gamers read stamina as “a reason to come back tomorrow,” while ordinary people read it as “Why are you stopping me?” The same device is rhythm on one side and a wall on the other.

The costs this convention imposes on ordinary people are time and the psychology of monetization. To continue, they must wait or pay, and both are far too early in a first experience. They are being forced to wait or pay for something they do not yet even like.

This friction becomes even clearer in casual games. Consider the hearts in Candy Crush Saga. Each failed round consumes one; when they run out, the player must wait a long time for one to refill or pay. Complaints have long followed this device because it ties the player's hands at the very moment they want to keep playing. The situation is similar even in enormously popular games. Genshin Impact's energy becomes a late-stage friction felt only after dozens of hours rather than a first-day wall, yet even users already settled into the game consistently call it stifling. Both cases point toward one lesson: if a device is resented even by those who have grown attached, it can only be resented earlier and more intensely by first-time users who have not. Keep the essence and change the form. The original aim of an energy limit is “a reason to return every day,” but that reason need not become a wall on the first day. During the first experience, do not stop users until they choose to stop. Only much later, when the wish to continue has grown strong enough, gradually introduce the rhythm as a reason to return.

Next is gacha, which gives rewards or characters through randomized draws. It comes from a long tradition of design that creates excitement through scarcity and keeps people engaged with the thrill of beating low odds. For gamers, the anticipation of a draw is play in itself; they enjoy not knowing what the presentation will reveal.

Newcomers are different, and practitioners know it. Many games today erase the money issue from the first gacha entirely by handing out ten free pulls in the tutorial. The reason this free first draw works is clear: it offers excitement without a charge. It retains only the anticipation of not knowing what will appear and removes the bill, placing the cheapest piece of gacha's essence in the user's first hand. But the inspection does not end there. Even when the monetary cost disappears, an attention cost remains in probability disclosures and currency systems. Which currency pays for how many pulls, what the odds are, and on which pull the guarantee arrives are common knowledge to gamers but an entirely new language to newcomers. To someone who came for a webtoon or because they liked a character, that language has a different texture from the experience they expected. Gamers read gacha as excitement; many others read it as “a trap to make me spend money.”

The costs this convention imposes on ordinary people are the psychology of monetization and damage to trust. It makes them calculate “this place will cost a lot” before they have enjoyed it, and that calculation erodes trust. Even a game that removes the admission fee with ten free pulls starts the same calculation if it immediately unloads the language of probabilities and currencies. Keep the essence and change the form. What gacha originally meant to offer was “the thrill of not knowing what you will get,” but that thrill does not require probability and money. In the first experience, it is safer to let users choose what they receive or give them a certain return for their effort. Excitement driven by chance and money should be offered as an option, together with the language of its system, only after users already trust this world.

▶ Three Questions to Apply to My Screen

What costs does this screen charge an ordinary person?

Is an ordinary person willing to pay them?

Did we show value before charging? If any one answer is blocked, the screen is billing someone who has received nothing.

Therefore, Budget the Costs of the First Five Minutes

When we look at the first screen through the lens of cost, the order of design changes. Instead of first asking what to show, we begin by asking what to charge and what to defer.

The principle of the first experience fits in one line: do not charge before giving. Until users have their first bit of fun in hand, defer expensive costs. Delay sign-up until there is something to save, permission requests until the moment they attempt the action that needs the permission, payment offers until they understand the value, and ranking comparisons until they have gained confidence. From the user's perspective, sign-up is a kind of security deposit. They willingly pay it only after they have something worth entrusting. The first screen should look as “free” as possible. Just as users do not consciously calculate a cost when opening YouTube, our first screen must hide the sensation of cost long enough for them to step inside. If a cost is visible in advance, they calculate before entering, and the instant they calculate, other content looks cheaper.

Draw one clear line here: deferring and hiding are different. Deferring means giving value first and charging afterward. Hiding means drawing people in while concealing what will be charged. A game that looks free and suddenly produces payment windows and gacha much later did not defer the charge; it hid it. At that moment, it completes the very narrative of “a trap to make me spend money” that we warned against above. Chapter 13 will introduce the principle of honesty: an event must exist behind an indicator. The same ethics applies to costs. Do not deceive users about the fact that they will have to pay something. Moving the moment of payment until after value has been given is the limit of design; crossing that line is not design but deception.

Go one step further: the goal of the first screen is not merely to reduce costs to zero. As Cookie Clicker-like games show, a screen that puts a cookie in the user's hand on the first click does more than refrain from charging—it pays first. We pay before the user does. Games long grew on something close to prepayment, taking money first and promising fun. YouTube and short-form media grew on postpayment, giving fun first and collecting later through advertising. When the first screen must stand in the same line as these postpaid neighbors, it is not enough for the cost to be invisible. The math works only if we put what we will give into the user's hand first.

Some costs cannot be deferred. Consent to terms, legal age checks, and mandatory permissions required by a platform may be forced onto the first screen by law or platform rules and cannot be removed by the designer. The prescription for these costs is not deferral but packaging. Do not scatter them. Bundle them and collect them once, in the cheapest possible package. Instead of stopping users three times by dividing consent items across three screens, gather them on one screen and finish in one pass. Keep only as much wording as can be read in that moment, then send users straight into the game. If a charge is unavoidable, combining the bills into one sheet is at least a way to lower the price. Errors and recovery—the act of returning an incorrectly charged cost, so to speak—will be handled separately in Chapter 17.

This decision leads to measurement. Yet a drop-off figure is not evidence of a cost by itself: drop-off is an outcome, while cost is a hypothesis. After finding the screen where drop-off clusters, use the seven types to determine which cost was being charged there. If half of users leave at the sign-up screen, form the hypothesis that the personal-information cost was imposed too early. If they leave halfway through the tutorial, hypothesize that time and attention costs were excessive. Then defer or reduce that cost and see whether the figure moves. The seven costs are not an answer key that explains drop-off. They are a diagnostic tool for distinguishing drop-off points. Only when used that way can quantitative data illuminate where we were charging too much.

Reference Content

Cases in other media that reveal the concepts of this chapter.

Video Games

Candy Crush Saga's hearts: an energy limit that ties the player's hands just when they want to continue. If even gamers resent the device, a first-time user with no attachment will resent it earlier and more intensely.
Genshin Impact's energy (Original Resin): a cap on daily reward activities. It is not a first-day wall but late-stage friction felt after dozens of hours, yet even settled users consistently call it stifling—supporting evidence for “a device resented even by those already attached.”
Cookie Clicker-style free clicker games: the first click immediately increases the cookie count, with no account, download, or tutorial. They put value in the user's hand before charging. Every click returns instant feedback, and no cost is visible, so users first step inside. Refer to this entry pattern: do not charge before giving, and attach an immediate reward to the first action.

General Apps

Apps that defer permission requests until the permission is used: instead of asking everything at once on the first screen, they ask at the moment the permission is actually needed. The navigation app Waze asks for recording permission when the voice button is tapped, while Babbel asks for microphone permission only upon reaching a speaking exercise. Contextual requests are reportedly accepted at a much higher rate than indiscriminate requests in the first session.
Typeform-style “one question per screen” forms: rather than showing many fields at once and making users leave because “this will take too long,” they slice the attention cost thin by presenting only one question at a time. When the number of questions is small, multi-step forms that ask one question at a time are reportedly said to achieve noticeably higher completion rates than forms that place every field on one page, though some observations suggest that the advantage shrinks once the number of questions far exceeds ten. Refer to this direct translation of “ask for only one thing at a time” into an input screen.

The remaining reference content is gathered in the “Chapter 11 Appendix” at the end of this chapter (collected as Appendix D in the printed volume).

Design Note ▶ Try It Yourself

Lay out the first five minutes of our game in chronological order. Write down the first screen, login, permission requests, tutorial, first action, first reward, and first offer in sequence.

At each point, write one line: what cost are we charging the user here? Which of the seven costs—attention, time, opportunity, social, failure, personal information, or the psychology of monetization—is added at this point? Then add one more line. Must this cost be charged now, or can it be deferred until the user has tasted the first bit of fun?

Once everything is written, draw a line where the first fun arrives. Circle the expensive costs that appear before that line, and move every circled cost that can be deferred to the other side. Chapter 20 will separately determine exactly where the first fun should arrive by addressing starting and ending points. For now, draw the line at the most plausible point in the current build. This is the first draft of the cost budget for the first five minutes, and this work will grow into the experience-cost table and first-five-minute cost budget in Appendix B.

If you were charging expensive costs before the first fun arrived, move those costs behind the line now.

One-line summary: Users do not arrive in the good state we assumed. They are distracted, in noisy places, and have come after giving up other content. Experience is not given but paid for. The seven costs—attention, time, opportunity, social, failure, personal information, and the psychology of monetization—are most expensive on the first screen, and their prices are not fixed but rise and fall with the user's state. Do not charge before giving. The conventions of blocking people with stamina and exciting them with gacha are rhythms to gamers but pressures of time and money to newcomers. Next chapter: To decide what to give first while deferring costs, we must first know what kinds of experiences content can give. Different people want different experiences. Some want sensation, some possession, and some relationship. In the next chapter, we unfold the types of experience that content provides.

Chapter 11 Appendix: Reference Content Collection

This collection extends the chapter's claim that experience is not given but paid for: the first screen charges users seven costs—attention, time, opportunity, social burden, failure, personal information, and the psychology of monetization—and those prices rise and fall with the user's state rather than following a fixed list price. The cases are grouped by medium, and each entry ends with an “Observation” describing what a designer should watch. There is one way to read them: look at what cost each case charges and when, and whether it charges before giving or after.

Video Games

Flappy Bird and Doodle Jump-style one-thumb games: Flappy Bird (2013) uses only a single tap that makes the bird rise once, while Doodle Jump (2009) moves with a single tilting action. By reducing input to one action for a distracted, one-handed user holding a subway strap, they let “just one more round” roll through every short gap. Observation: whether our first action remains possible with one hand amid noise; the number of inputs is the number of lines on the attention bill.
Slot machines' “near misses” and winning presentations: gambling research discusses how a near miss that stops just short of a win and a presentation that sounds like victory despite returning less than the stake encourage continued play. This is the source form of the excitement borrowed by gacha. Observation: the same presentation reads as excitement to someone from a gaming background but as a warning—“this place runs on chance and money”—to a newcomer; the price of excitement differs by origin.
Super Mario Bros. 1-1: the 1985 game places a Goomba in the player's path immediately after the start without a line of text, letting the player learn to jump on their own before reaching a complex section. The level structure pays the attention cost that explanatory text would have charged. Observation: embedding instruction in the screen's structure reduces the cost almost to zero; watch how the arrangement teaches only one action at a time.

Live-Action Film

The line of commercials and trailers before a movie: a time cost charged first to people who came for the feature, and the longer it is, the more expensive it feels to viewers who have already paid for a ticket. Observation: an added charge feels more expensive to someone who has already paid another cost; measure how many minutes of “line before the feature” our first screen contains.
The cold opens of Breaking Bad and Lost: Breaking Bad (2008) begins its first episode with a man in his underwear driving an RV carrying bodies through the desert. Lost (2004) begins with its protagonist awakening in a jungle without explaining the crash. They raise a question before explaining who and why, avoiding time and attention charges before giving. Observation: how delaying explanation and putting an event first turns costs into postpayment.

Live-Action TV / Drama

Netflix's “Skip Intro” and automatic next episode: they treat waiting and repeated clicks as costs and remove them from the viewer's hands. The Skip Intro button was reportedly introduced around 2017, and the next episode begins automatically after the credits. Observation: design that reduces friction on the assumption that viewers will look away; also note the accompanying criticism that automatic continuation holds viewers for too long.
Ad-supported free viewing: content looks free, but the viewer pays a time cost in advertising. The less visible the cost is, the more readily people step inside. Observation: visible and felt costs are different; identify which costs on our first screen are visible and which are hidden.
YouTube's “Skip after 5 seconds” ads: instead of forcing the full time cost of an ad, they charge a fixed five-second rate and leave the rest to the viewer's choice. Skipped ads are reportedly tied to a system in which the advertiser is not charged. Observation: when a cost cannot be avoided, announcing its upper bound in advance lowers its perceived price; compare waiting whose end is known with waiting whose end is unknown.

Music

Shortened song intros in the streaming era: because distracted listeners skip a song within seconds, musicians first cut the time cost of the introduction. Reportedly, intros that averaged around twenty seconds in the 1980s have recently shortened to around five, and roughly a quarter of streaming songs are skipped in the first five seconds. Observation: cut the introduction so listeners do not leave before hearing the value; the first five seconds are the most expensive checkout counter.

Board Games

Heavy board games such as Gloomhaven: the thick rulebook of this 2017 title can charge attention and time costs all at once before the first play. The rulebook therefore uses the first scenario, Black Barrow, as an example, teaches only the rules needed for that session, and recommends that one person lead the game. Observation: teach only what the first play needs instead of everything in advance; this is a concrete technique for converting a lump-sum cost into installments.
Beginner-friendly progression that adds one task per turn: it slices requirements thin so even a distracted first-time player decides only one thing at once. Observation: the principle of “ask for only one thing at a time” takes the same form on the table.

Real-World Workflows

Sites that block browsing until sign-up: they charge a personal-information cost to someone who might merely come to like the service. Charge before giving, and people calculate first. Observation: can we read drop-off before the sign-up barrier as “excessive cost” rather than “lack of interest”?
Immediate assistance at a store entrance versus letting people browse first: when an employee follows someone as soon as they enter, a person who only wanted to look around feels burdened and leaves. Social costs are priced in everyday spaces too. Observation: whether the greetings, notifications, and conversation on our first screen are hospitality or burden; the user's state makes that judgment.

General Apps

Apps whose product bundles and discount timers cover the screen from day one: they impose a psychological monetization cost by making users decide “Will this place cost money?” before enjoying anything. Observation: the moment a payment offer precedes the experience of value, the calculation of trust begins.
The anecdote of the “$300 million button” in guest checkout: as told by UX expert Jared Spool, a large online retailer required sign-up just before checkout, then added a “Continue without registering” button and saw completed purchases rise enough to add roughly $300 million in annual revenue. Observation: the personal-information cost is most expensive just before payment; moving the timing of the same charge changes its price.
Amazon's one-click ordering: it collects and stores the recurring costs of entering an address and payment method once, then completes future orders with one press. The feature was patented in 1999, and the patent reportedly expired in 2017. Observation: where on our screen could a design collect a repeated time and attention cost only once?

Devices / Consumer-Electronics UX

Long initial-setup wizards for smart TVs and devices: they line up language, region, remote pairing, Wi-Fi, terms, account login, and updates, charging time and attention before the device can be used. If even one step fails, returning to the beginning makes the process more frustrating. Products that at least provide “Skip” or “Later” for account login and similar steps reduce the entry cost. Observation: distinguish costs that cannot be deferred, such as essential setup, from those that can, such as account and app login; package the bill into one sheet.

Theme Parks / Spatial Experiences

Posted wait times at Disney parks: attractions display estimated waits at their entrances and fill the queue with things to see and advance presentation. It is often said that the posted time is set slightly longer than the actual one to leave the feeling that “we got on sooner than expected.” Observation: if a time cost cannot be removed, disclose it in advance and place content inside the wait to lower its perceived price; this principle can be copied onto a loading screen.

Offline / Everyday Life

Costco sample stations: they let customers taste before buying. This is a prototype of postpayment that puts value in the customer's hand before collecting a charge, and samples are often said to raise sales of the product substantially. Observation: whether our first screen presents the checkout before the sample; what is the “one bite” we will give first?

Literature

The in medias res openings of the Odyssey and Iliad: rather than explaining everything ab ovo, from the egg, they pull the reader directly into the central situation. The Iliad begins not at the start of the Trojan War but with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, filling in the missing background later through recollection. Observation: the ancient prototype of an opening that delays background explanation and begins with action; epics were already collecting costs through postpayment thousands of years ago.

Comics

The battle for the first chapter in Weekly Shonen Jump: reader surveys rank a series from immediately after its debut, and a failure to hold readers within the first few chapters is known to lead to early cancellation. Editors and creators therefore place their greatest effort into the first chapter. Observation: the first chapter is where a newcomer assigns the most expensive first-impression cost; watch what it shows and what it defers.