Why would a designer make something deliberately harder to use?
For structural engineers and packaging designers, this question feels unnatural. Our instinct is to remove friction, streamline tasks, and optimise for speed. But this assumption hides a deeper problem: we tend to equate ease with improvement. The idea of improvement, however, is subjective. It reflects what we value — efficiency, convenience, speed — rather than what may be meaningful or memorable.
When we deliberately introduce friction into an opening experience, we disrupt the unconscious flow of use. We slow people down, prompt participation, and re-establish physical awareness. Surprisingly, human beings respond positively to this. In design research, this is known as Positive Friction — purposeful resistance that stimulates engagement.
In packaging, this counterintuitive approach turns the opening moment into a small puzzle. If tasks become too effortless, they blur into the background; when a task asks us to think or feel, we realign with the physical world. This is why the IKEA Effect exists: we place greater value on things we’ve exerted effort to attain or assemble.
Tension and Release
Embodied design in packaging is built on managing tension and release. Tension isn’t metaphorical. It can be the friction of a carton tab, the vacuum pull of a rigid box lid, or the quiet magnetic resistance of a closure. These micro-moments create anticipation: a forced pause before access.
Crucially, tension should be momentary and intentional. It must signal precision and quality, never brokenness. This is where tolerance management matters. Tight tolerances (parts that fit with minimal play) are a universal signifier of high-quality manufacturing. The effort applied to open a box must correlate with a clean, reliable outcome.
Release is equally important. It engages our Haptic Gating: the neural process where touch informs expectations around value, weight, and authenticity. Designers measure opening forces, closure strength, and material response for this exact reason.
1. Prolonging the Experience
Delaying an opening can be intentional, especially for premium goods, limited editions, and ceremonial items. This delay forms the basis of the modern unboxing experience: a ritual of anticipation.
When a consumer has an emotional or financial investment, opening becomes symbolic. By extending the sequence, we create a respectful pause; a moment that mirrors accomplishment or attainment.
During this pause, temporary sensory deprivation heightens attention. When the product is visually obscured, the consumer listens for the crisp snap of a seal or feels the textured drag of paper. By modulating sense engagement, we temper emotional buildup and ensure that the reveal carries more weight.
2. Effort as Stress Relief
Tension and release are fundamental to how our nervous system regulates stress. Packaging can harness this dynamic in subtle ways: the satisfaction of separating a perforated strip in one clean pull, or the audible ‘pop’ when collapsing a carton.
These small acts of controlled destruction are not trivial. They mirror internal pressure and relief, turning a necessary task into a sensory exhale.
3. Psychological Ownership and the First Touch
Destruction also plays a role in forming psychological ownership. When we tear a strip or break a seal, we become the first person to interact with the untouched contents. This transition, from retail object to personal possession, is marked by that initial snap.
Alteration is equally powerful. Once opened, the package no longer resembles the thousands on the shelf; it becomes singular. We justify the minor struggle by elevating the perceived worth of what lies inside: “If it was this difficult to access, it must be valuable.”
4. Security, Authenticity, and Trust
Restricting access also communicates protection. For pharmaceuticals and hazardous products, tamper-proof mechanisms are essential, but even in non-essential goods, the logic still applies.
A seal suggests that a product has travelled from factory to consumer without interference. Remove this layer of controlled disruption, and trust erodes. Premium packaging borrows from tamper-proof semantics not for safety, but to signal that the contents are precious and unadulterated.
Without an initial obstacle, there is no confirmation of integrity.
5. Material-Specific Design
New papers and boards — from kelp to coffee waste to post-consumer fibres — behave differently from traditional substrates. Many are more brittle, meaning folding degrades structural integrity.
By using perforations for folding and joining rigid boards with slots or tension-based components, designers create structures that serve the material rather than fight it. This yields distinctive aesthetics and signals environmental intention without decorative rhetoric.
6. Playful Novelty
Novelty drives engagement. When packaging departs from standardised norms (as in limited runs or collector editions), designers can employ gamification. In these cases, the product becomes the prize, and the opening sequence becomes the game.
Novelty is not superficial: without periodic environmental variation, humans stagnate. Packaging can deliver micro-learning and exploration through form, sequence, or mechanism.
Using Counterintuitive Measures to Connect with Consumers
So how can counterintuitive design ‘improve’ packaging?
A better analogy might be an obstacle course: challenging but achievable. It demands attention, creates micro-accomplishments, and reconnects us with our bodies.
For brands selling objects of artistic value, craft, or collectibility, consider mechanisms such as:
- Sequential Unfolding: layered reveals, certificates, inner chambers
- Compartmentalisation: nested fitments or discrete components that imply purpose
- Tolerance Precision: closures that feel engineered rather than incidental
- Single-Use Transformation: seals and perforations that mark ownership
Everything should feel like it belongs; intention is a silent form of respect.
Conclusion
Packaging does not need reinvention; our idea of improvement does. Counterintuitive design introduces a purposeful pause: a brief resistance that respects attention and signals care. It leverages effort without creating difficulty, and curiosity without creating confusion.
Most importantly, it reconnects people with physicality through tension and release, trust and ownership, patience and reward. These are not design embellishments, but human values.
Ontopack 
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