Jul 27, 2017 · 1 min read
Great article! At Robots and Pencils, one of our fifteen mobile app heuristics is “Appropriate Friction”, for all the reasons you mentioned, plus one more: when friction creates a sense of mastery in a product that is ubiquitous, there is a social effect whereby people enjoy teaching others how to use the product. The most obvious example to me is iOS settings. The usability of the iOS Settings app could be improved greatly, but once you learn the system there’s a sense of pride in teaching others that have questions about how to change a ringtone or “make the text bigger”. This type of friction gets people talking about the product and leveling each other up. Pokemon Go is another great example.
