This principle helps explain why people behave differently from what pure logic would predict.
More quotesThe middle of almost everything is where standards go for a nap.
Restaurants fuss over the greeting and dessert, then leave twenty minutes of plate-clattering purgatory in between. Software companies polish onboarding until it gleams, while task number forty-seven requires the patience of a medieval monk. Hotels scent the lobby like a minor palace and hope nobody looks too closely at the corridor carpet. This is not entirely stupid. Attention is lumpy. The first bite writes a prediction; the brain lazily edits the following bites to fit.
The mistake is hearing that and concluding the middle may be crap. It may be less noticed, but it is still used. Eventually a bad workflow, bland chocolate centre or mysterious subscription charge can punch through adaptation and become the only thing remembered. I would spend disproportionately at the moments customers actually sample—the entrance, first result, dangerous transition and exit—then make the connecting tissue quietly dependable. Do not gold-plate every second. Do not hide rot behind a scented reception either. Experience design is partly the craft of quality and partly the craft of knowing when quality gets inspected. The clever product gives attention something excellent to find at the edges and nothing alarming enough to wake it in the middle.