Exactly. This is a very general pattern of error in software design - the use of a non-causal pathway to model causality. It is an especially exasperating problem, as it is both more complicated and more prone to failure than doing it right.
This goes well beyond UI design, and there are even physical analogs - for example, the crash of Turkish Airlines flight 981 in Paris could have been prevented if the device to prevent the cabin being pressurized if the cargo door was not properly closed had been operated by the door locking pins sliding home all the way, rather than by a side-linkage off the linkage that was supposed to drive in the pins.
This goes well beyond UI design, and there are even physical analogs - for example, the crash of Turkish Airlines flight 981 in Paris could have been prevented if the device to prevent the cabin being pressurized if the cargo door was not properly closed had been operated by the door locking pins sliding home all the way, rather than by a side-linkage off the linkage that was supposed to drive in the pins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981#Ca...