A while ago I saw a youtube video about a survival guide to the brainrot apocalypse (https://youtu.be/6fj-OJ6RcNQ?si=RnQvDCDZ1GuJucp7) and it had an interesting section which talked about replacing doomscrolling with reading about fallacies and scientific articles. That’s how and why I came across and read this particular paper: “Slow Design for Meaningful Interactions“.
It left me thinking about a design philosophy I usually associate with niche craft projects, not mass-produced consumer products. The authors explore how the principles of Slow Design — a movement rooted in slowing down, creating awareness, and fostering more reflective, meaningful engagement — can be applied even to everyday appliances like a juicer. At first, this seems counterintuitive: mass-produced objects are designed to be efficient, convenient, and fast. But the paper argues that slowing down the right parts of an interaction can actually increase product attachment and ultimately lead to more sustainable behavior.
Slow doesn’t mean forcing the user to waste time. Instead, it means enriching the moments that are already meaningful. For a juicer, the meaningful moment isn’t the cleaning or the storing — it’s watching the fruit transform into juice and feeling connected to the process. The study reveals that people enjoy activities that slow them down when they choose them, like preparing coffee on a quiet weekend morning, paying attention to small details, or creating something with their hands. That insight became the backbone for reinterpreting the original Slow Design principles into more actionable ones: reveal, expand, reflect, engage, participate, evolve, and a new one — ritual. These were then used to redesign a juicer in a way that makes the user more involved, more aware of what’s happening inside the device, and more inclined to treat it as a long-term companion rather than something to eventually discard.
This made me rethink the moments in my own design projects where I rush to try to optimize everything. Friction is often treated as something to eliminate, but the paper reframes certain types of friction as opportunities for reflection, connection, or even emotional durability. It made me wonder where I can intentionally slow down an interaction — not to make it harder, but to make it more meaningful. A subtle animation that reveals a system’s inner workings, a gesture that requires a moment of intention, or a small ritual embedded in the interface could shift the user from passive consumption to mindful engagement.
