Friction and Not Being Touched
tante.cc
tante.cc
Have a hard time reaching customer service? That is because they added friction to finding the number on purpose. Have to wait in the phone line and go through a maze of electronic voices before being able to talk to a person? Friction. That tax form seems needlessly complicated? Friction.
Friction is an essential design component of any system and some of it's uses are also legitimate.
Sometimes you want the costly action to have a small cost on the user side as well, which will act as a filter for people who really need your help, for example.
Let's say for example you have a self-service platform for students and they should be able to change their name. Now you could do that frictionless, but a name change is not frictionless in the bureaucratic backend of the student office. That means representing it to the user as a simple frictionless process, when it isn't is a misrepresentation of reality. Then it is better to represent it as a thing they can request and have to wait for till it is done.
Ideally of course the student office would have systems where names can be changed 10 times a second with flawless forward- and backwards-compatibility, but that isn't the world we live in.
I don't read the author as claiming that at all. In fact I came away thinking this was an argument for friction, if anything.
To quote the author:
> In tech circles friction is seen as bad, everything needs to be frictionless. Every interaction with anything needs to be smooth and uninterrupted.
This is the claim I refuted. This is what the tech circles like to appear like, all while using friction when it comes to their AGBs, when it comes to rejecting their tracking cookies, when it comes to opting out or unsubscribing, you get the idea. Don't want a path to be taken often? Add friction.
These are all examples for neferious use of friction, but in itself there is nothing bad about friction. E.g. the "Format" button on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera needs to be hold for three seconds (animating as you hold it). This added friction gives you enough time to reconsider whether you really want to erase all those videos you recorded.
Helping people necessitates taking some action, spending resources, potentially making some errors that can be taken against you.
But on the other hand, refusing to help people without any reason or flimsy reason is also frowned upon.
Adding friction is a perfect solution, now you want to help everyone but this stupid/pesky/lazy people just aren't able to follow simple(they ain't) instructions how to properly follow process of acquiring etc.
Now it's their fault, so no action is needed on you behalf.
Thanks for wasting my time! You might just want to exert a little bit more effort next time to explain why you felt that way, which would make your hard-earned piece of advice a useful contribution to this place instead of that weird way of reminding everyone that you exist at the detriment of others.
It seemed strange and I thought they could surely modernize their operations and get more business.
Nope. The friction was intentional, they told us later. Before visiting the cave you had to prove it was worth it by calling, and that you could follow directions and instructions.
They previously didn't filter customers so well and those people would touch and break sensitive pieces of the cave.
I dunno, other people constantly forcing their boring existence on me and insisting that I choose THEM over some machine feels more "narcissistic" from their side than "the idea of frictionlessness".
I really do not like the vibe from author. People are not dealing with some friction (shitty) app, because they have better things to do. Not because they are emotional or need a safe space.
The same way "touching" random people on public, is very rude behaviour. Sometimes it is unavoidable (in busy train), but you should be apologetic about that. Not see it as a virtue for challenging others!
And avoiding touch from random strangers, is not some sort of avoidance. There are germs, diseases (covid), parasites and all sort of nasty stuff. Europe just had resurgence of scabies!
Plus I am highly allergic to animal dander, I do not want to be "touched" by your dog, I will go into asthma attack, and can suffocate!
> But especially if you are rich, you can change the equation. You can pay people to keep others away from you. Keep “your space” protected.
You can protect your space as a normal citizen, I carry pepper spray and walking stick! Nobody on street is touching me, or my kids!
> One way that some people combat this feeling of loneliness is by increasingly talking to chatbots.
And talking to people is somehow different? Even before AI, many people were called NPCs for a good reasson. Say something wrong and they smash "cancel" button!
If nobody is talking to you, you are probably lame!