Six Design Lessons from the Success of Wordle: Don't Engineer For Addiction

Wordle offers up only one new word everyday. That’s it. Once you’ve solved the day’s word, you…stop playing. You go do other stuff, like your job or hanging out with your loved ones. Sure, you might hanker to play more Wordle, but you can’t. You gotta wait until tomorrow.

Unlike nearly all social media (and most video games), Wordle is not trying to get you narcotically addicted to reopening the app again and again, all day long, in an eye-glazed trance.