Look around: Costs are everywhere

It’s easy to rest on the assumption that costs are only monetary. In product design, this misses an important point — costs are everywhere:

• Waiting for a webpage to load is a cost.
• Typing in your card details is a cost.
• Figuring out whether to trust a company you’ve never heard of before is a cost.
• Learning how a product works is a cost.
• Signing-up is a cost.
• Waiting to find something out (yes, uncertainty) is a cost.
• Having to print out, sign and post a form is a cost.
• Handing over your personal information is a cost.

Identifying costs [and] what they might equate to for your users is an insightful way to inform how you think about the products you make.