KPI · Move lower
Unintended activation rate
Share of consequential control activations followed quickly by reversal, recovery, restart, complaint, or support behavior.
Use this when a familiar cue may be triggering a stronger action than users intended. Count activations of candidate controls such as close, back, discard, delete, stop, or consent, then look for immediate evidence that the user did not mean it: undo, restore, reopen, restart, repeat setup, rage interaction, complaint text, or support contact.
Pair it with qualitative review. A high unintended activation rate tells you where the mismatch is; session replay or usability testing explains which signifier caused it.
How patterns use this KPI
| Pattern | How it's instrumented | Why it matters there |
|---|---|---|
| Affordance Hijacking | sessions with stop/discard/delete/consent followed quickly by undo, reopen, restart, restore, complaint, or support | Captures when a familiar cue triggered an action the user did not mean. |