What is Friction Design?
In Human-Centered Design, friction is regularly identified and treated as a usability flaw designers must minimise or utterly eliminate to promote seamless and efficient interactions between human users and artefacts. A common interaction designer’s goal is to minimise users’ effort, cognitive load, and sustain uninterrupted engagement, keeping them in a state of flow. The methods collected in this database challenge this assumption by reframing friction as a deliberate design strategy.Friction Design Manifesto
- Embrace discomfort and boredom
- Delay is okay
- Engage the body
- Design unpredictable behaviours
- Find fulfillment in the non-positive
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Patterns are repeatable components used by designers to reach specific objectives or design solutions.
Tactics are operational components used to apply friction within the interface or system in order to reach specific experiences or cognitive effects. They are identified through the use of nouns to identify concrete actions or configurations that materialize strategic intentions.
Strategies are high-level long-term theoretical approaches identified through verbs that express intention or intervention. By focusing on action, strategies establish conditions for aesthetic friction.
Models are analytical structures that help describe, interpret and develop existing discourses around aesthetic friction.
Taxonomies are systems of classification that organize approaches into structured relations.
Toolkits are structured sets of resources designed to support and motivate ideation within the design process.