Into the bin
The one that started the beef, now without emoji or hard-coded pixel offsets.
Lab / Interaction study
Sixty ways to delete a file.
A rebuttal, in sixty parts (plus a bonus). Every button below is real: click it, hold it, swipe it, or regret it. Five of them are actually good UX. The rest range from fun to deeply stupid.
Volume I
Hold to confirm
Press and hold. Let go early and it backs off. Stops accidental taps without a modal.
Shredder
The button turns into a slot. The document goes in whole and comes out in strips.
Turn to dust
A snap, and it breaks into about two hundred grains that blow away left to right.
Crumple & toss
Balled up and lobbed into the bin. Nothing but net.
Undo window
Deletes right away, then gives you four seconds to change your mind. Try clicking Undo.
Event horizon
A singularity opens and pulls the label in, one letter at a time.
Clean cut
One quick slash. Both halves slide apart along the cut and fall.
Backspace
The word "Delete" deletes itself one letter at a time.
Rubber stamp
Officially processed. Thud, a little shake, a little spatter.
Gravity off… then on
Every letter falls to the floor and bounces on its own.
Short fuse
A lit fuse runs to the button. You know what happens next.
Eraser
Scrubbed out by hand, crumbs and all.
Meltdown
The button fills with ink, sags, drips and spreads into a puddle.
Glitch & CRT off
The colour channels split and the picture tears, then it switches off like an old TV.
Paper plane
It folds itself into a plane, takes one wobbly loop and flies off.
Burn after reading
A glowing edge burns up from the bottom, with embers and smoke.
Overinflated
It puffs up, puffs up a bit more, trembles, and pops.
Trapdoor
The floor opens and it drops through. The doors swing shut behind it.
Launch into the sun
A countdown, a rumble, a burst of smoke, and off it goes.
Volume II
Twenty more, because twenty wasn’t enough.
Slide to delete
Drag the handle all the way across. If you let go early it springs back.
Are you sure?
The button splits into Cancel and Yes, delete. A confirmation that stays in place instead of opening a modal.
Robot vacuum
A little cleaning robot drives straight across and hoovers the whole button up.
Sands of time
The button turns to sand and drains through its own bottom edge into a pile.
Tile flip
Like a train-station departure board: the tiles flip away in a diagonal wave.
Freeze & shatter
Frost creeps in, the button cracks into shards, and the shards fall.
Peel off
Lifted at one corner like a sticker and peeled away.
Washed away
It starts raining. The ink runs and slides off the page.
Teleport
A beam locks on, squeezes it into a thin line, and sends it straight up.
Magic trick
The curtains close and open again. The button is gone.
Ghosted
It turns into a little ghost and drifts off without a word.
Domino
Each letter tips over and knocks down the next one.
The other side
It flips over. The back already says it’s done.
Quicksand
Sand appears underneath and it slowly sinks out of sight, wobbling.
Struck by lightning
A flash and a bolt leave it charred, and it crumbles into ash.
Type to confirm
The button only works after you type the word. Good for deletes you can’t take back.
One-tonne weight
Dropped from above and flattened. Dust puffs out on both sides.
Full stop
It shrinks to a dot, which becomes the full stop at the end of “Deleted”.
Redacted
Blacked out with a marker, then filed away as a redaction bar.
Reeled in
A hook comes down, catches the button, and yanks it out of the frame.
Delete the page
Why stop at one file? Everything on the page falls off the screen. Then everything comes back.
Volume III
Twenty idiotic ones. No notes.
Catch me if you can
It dodges the cursor three times, then gives up.
Cookie consent
Accept the cookies to continue. The button becomes a cookie and crumbles.
99% forever
It races to 99%, stalls, drops back to 12%, then finishes anyway.
Prove you’re human
Tick the box. You clicked too fast, which is suspicious. Fine, you can go.
Achoo
Ah… ah… AH… it sneezes itself clean out of the frame.
Refuses to leave
It shakes its head twice, then shuffles off with a sigh.
Pending approval
Five rounds of sign-off, a stamp, and finally permission to delete.
Don’t delete
Clicking “Don’t delete” makes it promise it won’t. Then it does.
Technically deleted
It shrinks to the size of a speck. Still there, technically.
Very slow delete
0.004% done, ETA three to five business days. Then it decides that’s close enough.
Wrong one
It deletes the card’s description first, apologises, and puts it back.
Delete²
A second Delete button falls on the first one. It sees stars.
Hydra
Delete one and two grow back. Keep going until there are eight.
Shipped to /dev/null
Packed into a box, taped shut, and sent off to nowhere.
Five more minutes
It dozes off. The alarm goes off. It leaves, grumbling.
Congratulations!
Party hat, confetti, the works. You deleted one file.
On hold
Your deletion is important to us. Please hold while the music plays.
Screensaver corner
It bounces around the edges, changing colour, until it finally lands in a corner.
Premium deletion
Deleting is a Pro feature. You get one free trial.
Bin is full
The first throw bounces off the full bin. Compact it, then throw again.