# Delight - personality that earns its place

Delight is product character revealed at a moment that deserves it - never a layer
of generic whimsy. One thesis per surface: state in a sentence what the user should
feel and why that feeling belongs to THIS product. Then build the smallest system
that delivers it.

## Where delight is earned

- **Effort worth acknowledging**: completion of something hard. Match the response
  to the consequence - milestones may expand; routine saves simply feel certain.
- **Waiting that can inform**: truthful progress with product-specific texture.
  Never fake work or delay completion to stage a flourish.
- **First use and empty states**: orient first, charm second. The next action must
  be clear before personality is added.
- **Errors and recovery**: warmth reduces stress; jokes must never trivialize loss,
  money, privacy, or blocked work.
- **Discovery**: reward curiosity with real utility, never hide required
  functionality behind an easter egg.
- **Repetition test**: will the hundredth encounter still satisfy? Charm that decays
  into friction was mis-scoped.

## The specificity bar

The moment must be specific enough that a neighboring product could not use it
unchanged. Derive the treatment from the product's own mechanism and world - a
confetti burst is a stock part; the way THIS product acknowledges completion is a
design decision.

## Protections (absolute)

Delight never: delays or blocks the primary task; overrides platform conventions or
accessibility; plays sound without consent; becomes mandatory or unskippable; adds a
dependency disproportionate to the moment. The interface must remain fast and
obvious with the flourish removed.