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Designing Friction (philosophical essay about technology)
(designingfriction.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Technology
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While I think the basic idea of deliberately introducing friction is interesting, I'd say the philosophers cited are making what's really a psychology statement, and so exceeding their qualifications, which irks me. The essay itself is philosophy, at least in the "design philosophy" sense.
If you are designing friction in, how do you go about it without turning away users? BeReal is the first successful-ish example that comes to mind. Forcing you to post at an inconvenient time is arguably friction-y, but people sign up in that case because the friction is experienced socially all at once, and it's a statement against the atmosphere conventional social media creates. For more practical tools that might be hard to replicate.
I mean, I was lucky to find a life-partner before dating apps were the default, so I'm going to be speaking a little out of turn here.
But I'd imagine that if those apps were a little more friction-y - like, if people weren't using an almost literally frictionless swipe left and right, but instead were encouraged by the interface to learn something about a person first, or, say, had to click reasons why they were swiping left or right - that it would be easier to make meaningful connections. You'd be designing in self-reflection and curiosity.
And sure, you might turn away some users by doing that - but what if that's actually a good thing?
Man, anything would be better than swipe apps. I'd use that.
They're a thing mainly because an "app designed to be deleted" is not a good way to make money. Almost all the big sites have switched over to swiping for that reason.
Ok yeah that's super interesting, and maybe kinda sums up the whole thing: the devs make tech that reduces the opportunity for thought and engagement, and that frictionless experience results in worse outcomes for users, but better outcomes for profits.
And yet, paradoxically, there are probably plenty more folks like yourself that would prefer to use a different kind of app!