In this article, we are going to learn Better User Experience Needs Better Designing Friction. Lots of people visit different websites but few stay on it for a longer time. If people do not find anything interesting and eye captivating on a web page they will soon leave it often within five seconds of their visit. That means you will have this short time window to create an impact and sensation in their minds so that they do not leave your site.
How? This you can do not only with the best website designed but designing friction so that you ensure that your website provides the best user experience. At present, you will see almost every UX design firm focus on the friction aspect of a website in addition to the basic elements of modern UX design.
Chunking is one such thing that they focus on as this works around very well with the natural limitations of memory retention ability of the human brain. If you wonder what is ‘chunking ‘ all about then the simple answer to your question could be:
- It is like breaking a 10-digit mobile phone number into three separate parts for easy memory retention.
- These parts or ‘chunks’ have the same effect in modern UX design.
- These chunks allow the users to process all the relevant information you have provided on your web page.
However, for getting the best results you will need to suggest and know how each of these pieces should be interpreted so that it allows them to skip over those entire chunks that do not impress or interest them.
Ensure good friction
You have to keep in mind the most important factor for a better UX design is to ensure good and all-out friction. If this is done, then under the right circumstances and devices it will be of lots of help.
- A good payoff: A good friction will ensure a good payoff. Ensure that nothing is too good to be true in your UX design because that is what kills most websites with a genuine threat to some of the UX products. Therefore, you will need to make your users work for it sometimes so that it pays off well. Take a cue from those websites that are based around good content. Ideally, this is part of the thrill that you will enjoy while sifting. All you have to do is find the gems out of the mediocre contents and repost them. This process of discovery will give your users a sense of achievement that will ensure and deepen their emotional investment.
- Quality control: Another important aspect of a good UX design is the quality of the content that will ensure friction in it is perfectly balanced. For this, you will have to first filter out all those irrelevant users especially found in those sites where typically the users generate the content. if you incorporate a more involved and dedicated signup process it will automatically block off those users that lack the desired level of commitment. This will, in turn, help you to reap the benefits of a better and fuller user experience. It is, for this reason, you will find that most reliable and successful websites are ‘invite-only’ sites that add to their appeal. How? This is because the scarcity factor increases the perceived value of the site which the users will look for and find out. This will provide the additional friction required to your site that will help you to filter out all those low-quality posts and of course those potential spam.
- Save the users: Good site owners care for their users and provide them with exactly what they want. They will focus on saving their users from themselves. Look at these sites and see how they protect the nuclear button always with the help of a ‘key activated cover.’ You can apply the same principle to your UX design. Remember, shaving some friction in your website is not at all a bad idea. Why? This is because it will ensure that your site does not allow any action that can result in severe consequences. For example, the ‘undo’ option is fine for reversing any individual mistakes made by the users unintentionally. It will also allow you to delete a single account from your sales pipeline. However, at the same time, it will ‘confirm’ that the short time window has offered the users a reflective pause before they make any possible bunch of mistakes, for example, deleting your entire sales pipeline unintentionally.
The user interface, as said before should be such that it can execute the fundamentals of the website flawlessly. If you follow all of the classic principles of UX design thoroughly you will be able to design a website that will be naturally free from any friction. This will, in turn, help you to design a website that will automatically fulfill the basics that will indirectly reduce the friction in the website and that too naturally.
The best practices
In particular, you will need to pay attention to the best practices for designing a website that is naturally frictionless. A few of these best practices are:
- Maintain consistency as this will reduce chances of any confusion amongst the users
- Maintain visual hierarchy to provide proper visual cues to the users to guide them to the right path and
- Ensure easy navigation so that a user is never lost when they try to accomplish any particular thing.
You will need to make sure that you create just the opposite of being effortless and intuitive. This is not always bad for the users because friction most of the time is an efficient and effective tool to design better experiences in the truest of senses.
Be informed that in UX design friction is that thing that prevents users from achieving their desired goals or getting their desired things done. If you are considering making the best of the newsletter signup, you should focus on the overlay covering of the actual content and skip using all those difficult terms on a landing page and even the optional questions that are needless in a checkout flow.
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That’s all, In this article, we have explained Better User Experience Needs Better Designing Friction. I hope you enjoy this article. If you like this article, then just share it. If you have any questions about this article, please comment