In UX we talk a lot about clarity, consistency, accessibility, and reducing friction. These are necessary principles. But one question is often left out of the conversation: what happens when the user isn’t calm? When they’re scared, tired, short on time, made a mistake, or need to decide fast.
Most interfaces are designed as if the user were seated, with a good connection, reading everything carefully. But real life doesn’t work like that: people use digital products while driving, caring for someone, making an urgent payment, or uploading a document before a deadline. That’s where an interesting idea appears: the so-called Moriyasu method. It wasn’t born in a design school or in Silicon Valley. It comes from football. And that’s exactly why it’s so useful.
What is the Moriyasu method?
The “Moriyasu method” became popular thanks to a practice by Japanese coach Hajime Moriyasu: using an analog whiteboard with large numbers to communicate critical information to his players in high-pressure moments. It’s not a formal UX or sports-theory doctrine; it’s a label for a concrete practice: communicating from the sideline, through simple visual signals, relevant information like the time remaining or abbreviated instructions.
The explanation was simple: several players couldn’t clearly see the stadium clock or hear the bench. So the coaching staff turned a critical variable —time— into a large, direct, shared visual signal. That’s design: not graphic, not decorative, but as mediation between information, context, and action.
The big lesson for UX
The main lesson isn’t “use big numbers.” It’s this:
“When a person is under stress, the interface should show the minimum needed to make the next correct decision.”
Under pressure, more information doesn’t mean more clarity: often it means more cognitive load. A user under stress doesn’t analyze like a calm one. They scan, recognize patterns, look for signals. They want to know what’s happening and what to do now. So an interface designed for stress can’t behave like a dashboard full of options: it must behave like a critical signal.
The problem with many of today’s interfaces
Many experiences fail because they’re designed to organize functions, not to guide decisions. A user stranded on the road, low on battery and worried, opens their app and sees: History, Maintenance, Workshops, Insurance, Profile, Documents, Requests, Parts, Quotes, Notifications. From an information-architecture standpoint it looks complete. From a human-experience standpoint it’s a disaster. The user doesn’t need to navigate. They need to solve.
The question shouldn’t be “where do we put each function?” but rather: what does this person need to understand in the next 10 seconds to feel safe and act well? That’s the difference between designing an interface and designing a behavioral experience.
Moriyasu UX: a conceptual proposal
We can call Moriyasu UX a design approach for high-pressure moments: designing visible, minimal, actionable signals for users who are under stress, with limited processing capacity and a need to act fast. Its goal isn’t to explain more. It’s to reduce ambiguity. It doesn’t try to show everything: it shows what changes the immediate decision.
Why this matters from cognitive psychology
When a person is under pressure, their mental capacity shrinks. Working memory has limits, and under stress, cognitive flexibility, executive control, and calm evaluation of alternatives all deteriorate. In an open match, a player attends to the ball, opponents, spaces, fatigue, instructions, and the pressure of the score. Asking them to also calculate the remaining time adds unnecessary load. The whiteboard externalizes that information so it doesn’t compete with other mental demands.
The same happens in digital products. When someone is trying to upload a document before a deadline or resolve a declined payment, we shouldn’t force them to read long text, interpret ten states, or compare several options. The interface should help them think less, not more.
Designing for stress isn’t manipulation
Designing for tense moments doesn’t mean creating false urgency or using fear. That would be manipulation. The correct approach is different: if the tension already exists, design should make it understandable and manageable.
- Bad practice: “Last chance! If you don’t do this now, you’ll lose everything.” (exploits anxiety)
- Good practice: “Your request is due today at 5:00 p.m. You can submit it now or save your progress and finish later.” (organizes the decision)
Ethical behavioral design doesn’t seek to control the user. It seeks to improve the conditions under which they decide.
Beyond Nielsen
Nielsen’s heuristics remain fundamental: visibility of system status, recognition over recall, error prevention, minimalism. The Moriyasu case’s contribution is taking those principles to an extreme scenario: noise, pressure, fatigue, little time, low attention, and high cost of error. Moriyasu doesn’t replace Nielsen; it operationalizes several heuristics where clarity must be far more severe.
Nielsen says system status must be visible. Moriyasu UX asks: visible to whom, in what emotional state, with how much time, and under what pressure?
The 5 principles of Moriyasu UX
- 1. One dominant signal. The interface must choose the variable that orders the action (time, risk, status, next step…). If everything shouts, nothing guides.
- 2. Information must become action. Not just “Document pending”: better “1 document missing to submit your request: utility bill” + CTA “Upload bill.” Signal and action coupled.
- 3. Fewer options at the critical moment. A critical screen: one primary action, one secondary alternative, and a safe exit. No more.
- 4. The user shouldn’t remember what the system can show. Not “complete the required documents,” but “you’re missing 2 documents: utility bill and enrollment certificate.”
- 5. The signal must be shared and consistent. Design systems should define a grammar of critical states (pending, in review, urgent, approved, rejected, expired, recoverable, irreversible). Consistency isn’t aesthetics: it’s cognitive speed.
Applied example: roadside assistance app
The user is on the road and their vehicle stops. A traditional design greets them with “What would you like to do?” and seven options. Fine for normal navigation, but not for an emergency. With a Moriyasu UX approach, the app orders reality: first safety (“Are you in a safe place?”), then location (“Share location and request help”), then diagnosis and follow-up.
After requesting help, the critical variable changes: it’s no longer safety, it’s the wait. “Assistance requested · Estimated time: 18 min · Your location has been shared,” with the CTA “View assistance status.” That’s Moriyasu UX: the interface changes the dominant signal according to the moment of tension.
Applied example: complex forms
A rural user with low digital literacy must upload documents before a deadline. Instead of “attach the required documents to continue,” the dominant signal is “you’re missing 1 document: utility bill” + CTA “Upload bill,” with contextual help (“if you don’t have it now, you can save your progress”) and a safe exit (“Save and continue later”). The user doesn’t have to interpret the whole process: they understand what’s missing and what to do.
How to evaluate an interface under stress
A classic usability test asks whether the user completed the task. A Moriyasu test adds harder questions:
- Did the user understand what was urgent?
- Could they identify the next action without reading the whole screen?
- Did the interface reduce anxiety or increase it?
- Was the critical signal visible at a distance, in motion, or with distractions?
- Did they rely on their memory or on visible information?
- What error could they make under pressure, and how do they recover?
Designing for stress means testing in less-than-ideal conditions: it’s not enough to validate the screen in Figma — you have to ask how it behaves when the user is tired, rushed, or worried.
Five questions before designing a critical screen
- What is the user’s real tension? Not the task: the tension (fear, urgency, financial pressure, fatigue, uncertainty).
- What is the critical variable? The data that changes the immediate decision (time, missing document, risk, location, amount, consequence).
- What information is unnecessary right now? Under stress, hiding the secondary can be a way to help.
- What is the safe default action? The least risky path, not necessarily the most profitable for the business.
- How does the user recover if they make a mistake? Under pressure errors increase: you need clear exits and simple recovery.
The value for companies
This approach impacts metrics: less abandonment in critical flows, fewer upload errors, fewer support calls, better conversion, and greater trust. But the most important value is another: the user feels the product understands them exactly when they need it most. And trust is one of the most important metrics of any digital experience.
Conclusion: when the user doesn’t need a complete interface
The Moriyasu method doesn’t need to become a trend to be useful. Its value is reminding us of something essential: a good experience isn’t measured only when the user is calm, but when they’re under pressure. In those moments, design must be less decorative and more behavioral. Less explanation, more signal. Fewer competing options, more clarity about the next action.
“In moments of tension, a good interface doesn’t explain more: it reduces ambiguity, shows what’s urgent, and guides the next safe action.”
Because in critical moments, the user doesn’t need a complete interface. They need an interface that helps them decide.
— By Christian Benavides, CEO of MediaLab Ingeniería.