Small hassles and extra steps can sharply reduce action.
More quotesThree teams add “deliberate friction” to a service.
The first puts an important pension explanation in an awkward font. Readers spend more effort deciphering the letters and less understanding the pension. People file accessibility complaints immediately.
The second asks people to re-enter a destination account before transferring a large sum. The extra effort concerns the exact detail that could make the mistake expensive. Errors fall during the trial.
The third inserts an “Are you sure?” box before every action. Within a day, users still pause for the click but stop considering the question.
All three teams can claim they made people slow down. Only one attached the effort to the judgement that mattered.
In a learning test, one group generates an answer before seeing it. Another group rereads the answer in a peculiar typeface. A week later, researchers compare recall and comprehension. They measure immediate preference separately because repeated annoyance can undermine a useful intervention.
At the next design review, the chair assigns every proposed obstacle an owner and a sentence: “During this step, the person must think about ___.” Designers added one checkout step eight months ago. Its owner stares at the blank. Someone says the extra click proves commitment. The sales data includes hundreds of abandoned baskets. Nobody removes the step before the meeting ends.