The Paradox of Clarity: Why Making Things Too Easy Can Kill Engagement
I was 16 when I laid hands on a Japanese import of Sonic Adventure weeks before its U.S. release. I couldn’t read a word of Japanese, but I jumped in anyway. What happened next changed how I think about design forever:
Playing without understanding a single line of text was somehow more fun than when I later played it in English. The mystery made it magical.
This experience haunts me, and I bring it up frequently in meetings with clients. It flies in the face of everything we’re taught about UX design, and it raises an uncomfortable question: What if making things crystal clear isn’t always the answer?
What if sometimes it’s the fog that keeps users exploring?
The Core Drive of Discovery
In Actionable Gamification, Yu-Kai Chou identifies “Unpredictability & Curiosity” as one of the eight core drives that motivate human behavior. When an interface reveals everything immediately, it short-circuits this drive completely. Our brains are wired to explore, to piece things together, to make discoveries. This isn’t just about games — it’s fundamental to how humans learn and engage with the world.
The Empathy Trap
It’s counter-intuitive, but maybe we’re killing engagement by understanding our users too well. I call it the Empathy Trap — when designers smooth out every rough edge and inadvertently sand away the very things that make products engaging.
I’m not suggesting we start designing deliberately confusing interfaces. But there’s a sweet spot between spoon-feeding users and leaving them totally lost. It’s that goldilocks zone where people feel smart for figuring things out on their own.
Think back to any great moment in your favorite game. (I know for some of you, you might have to think way back). Was everything was handed to you? Or did you arrive at an ‘a-ha’ moment when you cracked the code yourself? That rush of “hell yeah, I figured it out!” — scholars call this the epiphany-aporia pair — doesn’t come from following instructions. It comes from meaningful struggle.
Where This Could Work
Let’s get concrete. Here’s where this counter-intuitive approach could shake things up:
- Learning apps: Instead of the usual “Here are 20 Spanish vocab words, now memorize them,” imagine an app that drops you into a simulated Spanish market. You’ve got to figure out how to buy ingredients for paella, piecing together meaning from context, images, and subtle hints. Hard? Yes. Memorable? Absolutely.
- Productivity tools: Take email. Every mail client now tries to write replies for you. But what if, instead of auto-generating responses, your email client helped you become a better writer? Maybe it highlights patterns in your most successful emails or gently nudges you when you’re being too verbose. You work harder, but you actually improve.
- Social platforms: What if your feed spotlights stunning photos but hides who posted them. You start recognizing a photographer’s signature style: those moody street shots with splashes of neon, always caught at dawn. Once you can confidently guess “That’s got to be @nightcrawler,” the app reveals their identity and adds them to your follows. Suddenly you’re not just mindlessly scrolling — you’re developing a curator’s eye and forming genuine connections based on artistic appreciation rather than follower counts.
These examples share a common thread: they make users work a bit harder up front, but that investment leads to mastery and genuine growth. It’s the difference between being given a map and learning to navigate by the stars — the second approach takes longer, but it changes you in the process.
Good Friction vs. Bad Friction
But there’s a world of difference between beneficial friction and plain old bad design. Good friction is like a perfectly weighted gym machine — it provides just enough resistance to build strength. Bad friction is like a door with a misleading handle — it just pisses people off.
Good Friction Example 1: Strava’s Segment System
In Strava, instead of just tracking your runs like every other fitness app, they scatter virtual race courses throughout the real world. At first, you might notice you earned a random achievement on your morning jog. Then you discover these “segments” are everywhere — that brutal hill near your house, that long straightaway in the park.
Soon you’re learning the hidden geography of your city through the eyes of other runners, discovering new routes, and challenging yourself in ways an automated “run 5k!” prompt never could. The complexity of serious training isn’t hidden behind pre-made programs — it emerges naturally as you explore, compete, and level up your running game. Every PR feels earned because you discovered these challenges rather than having them assigned to you.
Good Friction Example 2: Discord’s Permissions Structure
Discord is a very deep social app loaded with customization. But, instead of overwhelming new server admins with their full suite of moderation tools, they surface basic controls first. Then, they sprinkle evidence of more powerful features throughout the interface — glimpses of advanced roles, subtle hints about bot integration, nested menus that suggest deeper possibilities. Each time you master one layer, you naturally discover the next. The friction of learning complex moderation isn’t removed; it’s transformed into a series of “leveling up” moments.
Making It Work
So how do we actually implement this? First, we need to stop treating “time-on-task” as our only metric. Sometimes the scenic route is the better one. Here’s what works:
- Hide easter eggs in your interface that reward the curious
- Start basic, but let the interface grow with your users
- Create “wait, you can do that?” moments
- Reveal features like a good story reveals plot points
- Design for those lightbulb moments when everything clicks
Yes, there are risks. Push too hard and users bail. Make things too cryptic and you’ll face a riot. And let’s be real — your banking app probably isn’t the place to get experimental. But for the right product? This approach can be transformative.
The Bottom Line
That teenage me playing Sonic in Japanese stumbled onto something important. The magic wasn’t in the language barrier — it was in how that barrier made me lean in, pay attention, and actively participate in figuring things out.
As designers, we need to aim higher than just usability. We need to create experiences that transform users. Not just interfaces they can use, but interfaces they want to master.
So next time you’re about to add another tooltip or warning message, pause. Ask yourself: Am I helping my users grow, or am I holding them back? The answer might just change how you design forever.
Sam Liberty is a gamification expert, applied game designer, and consultant. His clients include The World Bank, Click Therapeutics, and DARPA. He teaches game design at Northeastern University. He is the former Lead Game Designer at Sidekick Health.
