Think about the last time you made a purchase with your phone. Maybe you were at a coffee shop and when it was your turn, you opened your payment app, tapped your phone on the payment device, grabbed your cappuccino and were done. Quick and easy.
Maybe too quick and easy.
Did the coffee shop miss the opportunity to get in touch with you? Did Mastercard miss an opportunity to show how their brand made this ‘priceless’ moment possible? Did you miss an opportunity to teach your 8-year-old daughter a lesson about the value of money?
As business leaders in an increasingly digital landscape, we’ve learned to think of “friction” as a dirty word. “Remove friction at all costs” is the battle cry of every customer and user experience design team.
But what have we lost in the quest to reduce cart abandonment or increase transaction speed?
By prioritizing speed and efficiency above all else, we miss opportunities to build connections between consumers and brands – and perhaps each other? Have we lost the space to think about the quality of a product, or the content of an experience? Can’t we just take a moment to think about a choice we just made and wonder if there are better ones?
Not all friction is bad
Friction, in its many forms, can be a positive force – for teaching, adding value, creating deeper engagement, and fostering human connection. A process that is too quick and simple may not provide enough choice, lead to ill-informed decisions or may even erode trust. An experience with the right kind of friction in the right amount can prove more valuable in the long run.
There is a well-known behavioral science principle commonly known as the IKEA effect. It refers to the global home furnishings giant and refers to a phenomenon where consumers place more value on an item they have invested time and energy into. That’s why you refuse to throw away the $30 bookshelf you spent four hours putting together in your first apartment. The experience of building IKEA furniture is a form of friction that promotes ownership and personal value, even if the intrinsic value of the item is low.
To be honest, our obsession with frictionless experiences stems from a legitimate fear: in a world of infinite choice, a single moment of frustration can send a customer to a competitor. But this relentless pursuit of speed and simplicity often results in a kind of non-experience, a homogenous market where every brand looks and feels the same.
The challenge is finding the right places to reintroduce friction, slowing down the process of building and differentiating your brand, deepening customer relationships, or driving sales. You can start by dissecting your customer experiences and looking for three types of friction: imagined, demanded, and created.
1. Imaginary friction
In our pursuit of a frictionless world, many customer experience designers have removed frictions that were never really a challenge for the customer. QR codes were introduced during the pandemic as a way to provide contactless ordering in restaurants and many are still in use. The ongoing justification is that it saves costs, enables change and reduces staffing requirements. While all of this may be true, it is no longer a customer need or a sticking point in restaurant dining experiences.
In reality, restaurant orders tend to be larger with physical menus because it allows for collaborative viewing and discussion among diners and gives servers the opportunity to upsell and encourage more human interaction between staff and guests. QR codesOn the other hand, they are only solving an imaginary friction and have demonstrably made the restaurant experience worse.
2. Requested friction
Nearly every hotel chain has introduced digital, keyless check-in, which you can do from your phone before you arrive at the property. At the same time, most hotel chains will acknowledge that the adoption of these technologies has been disappointing. Most guests would rather wait in line to check in, make eye contact with a hotel employee, announce their arrival to a human, and perhaps talk their way into a room with a view. The friction of a human interaction adds a degree of value, comfort and reassurance.
Brands need to examine their customer journeys to identify points where efficiency and digitalization are removing essential customer connection points, including connections that customers actually ask for – even if it means queuing after a six-hour flight!
3. Created friction
IKEA isn’t the only brand creating friction in their favor. With more than 1,000 stores, TJ Maxx is one of the largest clothing retailers in the country. It uses what it calls a “treasure hunt” strategy, where shoppers rummage through a huge selection of roughly organized goods in search of bargains.
The range is constantly changing and categories are just concepts: there is a good chance that you will find a soup spoon next to a decorative candle. But their loyalists, affectionately called Maxxinistas, fight through the friction to discover a hidden ‘loot’.
Reintroducing the right kind of friction
There are different types of friction: cognitive, emotional and interactive. In our rush to make everything effortlessly interactive, we’ve overlooked the cognitive and emotional (the human) aspects of friction.
But research shows that customers are attracted to brands that align with their identity and values, not just those that offer the fastest transaction. By treating friction not as a flaw, but as a feature – or as a moment to be human – brands can design experiences that are more intentional, better tailored to need, and ultimately more valuable.
While no one would make the argument that the world of consumer experience should make things slower, more difficult, or more inefficient, no one would suggest that we design things to be less human. The trick is and will be to balance an increasingly digitalized world with more humanity by creating more opportunities for attention, engagement and connection.
Oscar Yuan is chief strategy + growth officer at Material.
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