A few months back I was at the main Apple Store in New York City. I wanted to buy a case for my son’s iPod touch—but it was December 23. The crowds were so thick, I envied sardines.

Fortunately, I knew something that most of these people didn’t: I could grab an item off the shelf, scan it with my iPhone and walk right out. Thanks to the free Apple Store app, I didn’t have to wait in line or even find an employee. The purchase was instantly billed to my Apple account. I was in and out of there in two minutes.

Apple, in other words, has reached new heights in reducing friction—which benefits it as much as its customers.

Friction is a hassle. Steps. Process. And in this increasingly tech­ni­fied world, there is still a surprising amount of red tape—and few examples of push back. We stress about things like price, storage and processor speed, instead of beauty, elegance and low friction.

Why do some stores still make us sign credit-card slips? There is no legal or bank requirement to collect signatures. That bit of friction was originally intended as a security measure—but when is the last time you saw a clerk compare your signature with one on the back of the card?

Why, in this day and age, are we still typing in our address and credit-card details into Web forms, over and over again? Companies like Apple and Amazon have figured it out. Low friction means more sales. Apple has its app; Amazon has its 1-Click Buy button. You don’t have to enter any extra information. You see something you want, you click, and you’ve just bought it.

Every Web site that makes you fill in a form, or wait for a confirmation e-mail, or take some test to prove that you are human is adding friction—and losing sales. All of us, sooner or later, will wind up sitting there with a comment to make or a product to buy, see how many hoops we have to jump through and then back out: “Oh, forget it—not worth it.”

Actually, low friction doesn’t just mean more sales. It means more of any behavior you’re trying to encourage. Take, for example, the right to vote.

The formula for predicting someone’s likelihood to vote is something like PB + D > C, where P is the probability that your vote will make a difference, B is the benefit to you if your candidate wins, D is the gratification you get from voting, and C is friction—the hassle of registering to vote, then getting to the polling place, standing in line, and so on. Clearly, lowering the friction would increase turnout.

Imagine if we could register and vote online—or vote by making a few taps in a phone app. Voter turnout would likely skyrocket. And that would make for a real democracy. (Fear of manipulation is supposedly the reason we’re not there yet. But we could get there if we really wanted to.)

Or what about the obesity epidemic? We’ve tried almost every solution under the sun—except reducing friction. You can buy coffee with a tap on a Starbucks app, so why not healthy foods? Why can’t you get an apple, banana or bag of baby carrots in more vending machines or from a market with an app tap? Eating right still takes more effort than eating junk. Change the friction coefficient, and you change the game.

Next time you’re shopping for a digital camera, don’t ask how many megapixels it has. Ask how many steps it takes to turn on the manual focus. When you buy a laptop, don’t just care about its screen size; care about how many touch tones are required to get you to tech support. When you buy a phone, see how many taps it takes to e-mail a photo.

And if you’re on the other side of the table—if you’re the vendor—don’t just figure out how to attract customers. Figure out how to eliminate the friction you present to them. 

This article was published in print as "Technology's Friction Problem."

14 Comments

1. 1. fixerdave 12:27 AM 3/21/12

   Just like the real world, a certain amount of friction at the right time is a very good thing. Take buying for example... I kind of like that I have a few steps to jump through before my money jumps away. I don't want a speed-pass whatever... the idea that I've bought something I'm not really sure about... well, that makes me uncomfortable, almost as uncomfortable as the idea that any idiot could register a vote on a whim without actually having to put any effort into changing the future. Maybe in your formula, that 'D' should be rather high?
   
   Too much friction is a problem, yes, but I suspect a lot of people would be very uncomfortable in a 1-click buy/vote kind of world.

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2. 2. jtdwyer 12:52 AM 3/21/12

   I didn't even intend to read this article, but my computer thought I'd clicked on the link...

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3. 3. rushil2u 01:42 AM 3/21/12

   Unfortunately as always, a tiny minority will abuse the system. This is why communism doesn't work and why we can't have nice things.

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4. 4. thomashealycpa 03:00 AM 3/21/12

   I've noticed that some stores (i.e. restaurants) no longer require signatures for tickets under a certain amount. That's a low-friction way to buy your lunch. But they are missing on the chance to help their employees with a simple way to add tips to card charges. Why not post a sign at the register asking if you want to add $1, $2, or a $5 tip to the ticket? A single keystroke on the cash register, and the tip is included. No cash required.

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5. 5. tolumr 05:07 AM 3/21/12

   The benefits of adding the tip to the bill go far beyond no cash. In my part of the world, the waiter gets the tip, and does not often share it with the kitchen staff who actually prepare the meal. This way, every staff member can benefit (assuming the restaurant owner does not keep the tips).

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6. 6. MadScientist72 09:11 AM 3/21/12

   @ David Pogue - If you want to increase voter turn-out, instead of making it easy, how about making it mandatory? For every race or ballot question, you could add options for "no opinion" and "none of the above". If "NotA" beats all the candidates, they all lose and a new slate of candidates starts the process all over again. Maybe we could also put in the option of "Anobody but X", where every vote against a candidate subracts one from the total fim him/her. (I would hav eloved to have had this one back in 2000, when my vote "for Gore" was really a vote against Bush.)
   
   @ tolumr & thomashealycpa - Wait staff get paid a pittance (usually below minimum wage - one of the few occupations where this is legal) and live on their tips. Kitchen staff don't get tipped because they're not exempt from minimum wage laws. When you tip with plastic, rather than cash, you (a) leave them vulnerable to getting ripped off by the restasurant owner and (b) help Uncle Sam make life harder for a group of people that are usually already struggling to make ends meet by allowing the government to swipe taxes out of that tip money before the waiter/waitress ever sees any of it.

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7. 7. RDH 09:48 AM 3/21/12

   Fortunately we are not a democracy.
   
   Authoritarian regimes that hold an "election" typically find that almost 100% of the people voted for the candidate running the country. Voting is over. Let me run the app that determines who did not vote this time and that casts their vote for me!
   
   Really though. If someone is too lazy to get out and vote, I don't see any benefit to having them vote. They are just noise in the system.

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8. 8. ChapsBoy 10:56 PM 3/21/12

   I consider the 70+ % of people who do not vote are already saying "none of the above"! It isn't apathy that keeps them away from the poles, it's disgust. They see all the attack ads and realize there is (According to the ads) no one running fit for office. Considering many people today had a TV as a baby sitter where all of life's problems are solved in an hour or less, and anything you didn't like was eliminated by the click of a tuning knob, perhaps it is just as well.

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9. 9. jmssisler 03:19 PM 3/23/12

   If you are into shopping or spending money as a recreational activity I can see the advantage to this. However it is so easy to spend money and I think a bit of friction is good. Whenever I want to spend money on anything I take a few deep breaths, count to ten, ask myself "do I really need this?" We are literally pummeled with advertising to get us to spend needlessly. You can rest assured if something is advertised, you don't need it.

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10. 10. jtdwyer 04:02 PM 3/24/12

    This makes me think - why not make non-stick money that just slides through your fingertips? Then we could avoid all the friction of purchasing!

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11. 11. Daniel35 07:41 PM 3/26/12

    I'm glad to see most people are concerned first with voting, which can affect all the others. Here in Oregon we vote by mail or deposit the ballot in a curbside mailbox type receptacle. Better if could vote electronically and yes, beyond NOTA, encourage write-in votes with a ranked voting system such as Instant Recount Voting. This would help to get rid of our bi-polar two party system.

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12. 12. bucketofsquid 11:54 AM 3/29/12

    I love the idea of online voting! I can intercept all of the votes and change a certain percentage to guarantee the victory of candidates that are friendly to telecom companies and hate consumers.
    
    That app to pay so you don't have to wait in line - it works over open access airwaves so a simple intercept and decrypt can give me all I need to run up a bunch of bills on your phone. Then there is the old "oh, I payed for this with an app" as you walk out of the store with stolen goods. I'd have to know more detail on how it works to know what would be involved in making fraudulent purchases by app and how this info gets to the store. Then there is the whole anti-theft device issue.

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13. 13. jtdwyer in reply to bucketofsquid 02:39 PM 3/29/12

    Exactly - well done!

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14. 14. StandardPerson in reply to RDH 02:16 PM 5/2/12

    Australia is a democracy, of sorts, yet we have had mandatory voting since the Federation, when we also introduced universal sufferage. (Well, universal for women: our universe evidently didn't include indigenous people until the 1960s.)
    
    I've had people from other nations suggest that this is a shocking imposition, but I'd far rather vote once ever three or four years than do military service, as in Europe.
    
    Elections are also always held on weekends, which I'm told is not the case in the USA. You could reduce friction enormously by simply requiring elections to be held on Saturdays or Sundays.

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