Stranger than Friction
My friend spent all hours last Sunday happily perfecting her presentation deck image by image, then called me Monday to vent about the audacity of having to manually type her personal information for each and every checkout process.
"Everything is so overcomplicated nowadays," she complained.
Friction. We’ve been talking about it loads - especially over on substack and especially over the past year. Both as the final boss vs. Silicon Valley on a quest to design a ‘frictionless future’, and as the holy grail to a better, more meaningful life. Is it a simple binary?
As with most complex questions, the simplest answer is: well, it depends.
Intentionality. It’s What We Crave.
Ease can build trust and access. Friction can build meaning and connection.
Friction is neither the silver bullet nor the enemy, just as an easy, frictionless future might not be the utopia we can make it sound like.
Nearly 71.7% of online shopping carts are abandoned, especially on mobile devices.
Is this a result of too much friction in the checkout process? Or so much ease in the discovery phase that it’s all meaningless?
Did we devalue the process or make it impossible to complete?
The question isn’t whether or not friction should exist or be eradicated entirely, it’s about why and when it is meaningful to exist. Not all friction is created equal.
There's good, strategic friction that deepens connection, and underscores value…and there's just plain bad design that pisses people off. Same too for ease: when everything is instant, nothing really feels special: ultra-fast fashion is ultra affordable yes, but has completely devalued our perception of the effort required to create a garment.
Let’s map it out…
Designing Friction That Doesn't Suck
So how to know what to design for and when?
Here’s an exercise of opposites: When designing ease into a customer journey, product or project, imagine your end user customer having the worst day ever. Maybe they are short on time, high on stress, lost their wallet and starving for lunch. Ok, how can you help them get through the day just a little bit easier - in a meaningful way - without inadvertently creating further friction down the line.
And conversely, when designing friction: flip it. How might you inject a sense of meaning, value or belonging in an easy breezy day.
We can also think of it in terms of teams: there are - some - moments when resource limitations or a shorter deadline can produce new avenues to creativity or faster decision-making. But not always. Think about it: maybe Q4 isn’t the best time for slashing deadlines if you’d like everyone to return in the new year.
Think critically.
Is the payoff worth the friction?
Intent. That’s the key difference here. If you're going to make people work for something, make it worth it. Then make sure the friction fits how people actually behave. A 30-second task that’s fun? Dreamy. A 10-step process that requires a manual? Burn it to the ground. Think: more Typeform, less Google Forms.
Strategic friction works when:
The effort signals significance or craft (limited editions, bespoke services)
Co-creation = connection (Ikea effect, polls on features, contributing stories)
The process becomes the pleasure (building, learning, discovering)
But we bin it immediately when:
Someone's already frustrated (reporting fraud, complaints, urgent needs)
The added steps are beneficial for you, not your customers
It’s straight-up inaccessible
The payoff doesn't match the effort
Most importantly: pair the effort with something genuinely rewarding. Think good dopamine, like actual community, craft or edutainment - something that makes people think "ok, that was kinda fun" rather than "omg, never again."
I don't believe we actually want everything to be effortless. We want things that matter to feel like they matter. And the boring, routine stuff to feel simple, seamless or maybe even a bit fun sometimes. 1-Click purchasing seems like a great solution for simplicity at first glance, but its overuse creates friction downstream, for a future generation to deal with.
Instead of joining the quest for a ‘frictionless future’ or opting for a slower, friction-as-value-added lifestyle (myself included), there is a third thing: Strategic Friction. The art of knowing when to design for friction and when not to.
Let the optional, be optional and make what matters, really matter. On which note, I’ll close it up with a quote from the one and only, Dieter Rams:
“Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.”