Driessen Post (May 2 2012) A few months a back I was at the capital Angel Store in New York City. I capital 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 a lot of of these humans didn’t: I could grab an annual off the shelf, browse it with my iPhone and airing appropriate out. Thanks to the chargeless Angel Store app, I didn’t accept to delay in band or even acquisition an employee. The acquirement was instantly billed to my Angel account. I was in and out of there in two minutes.
Apple, in added words, has accomplished new heights in abbreviation friction—which allowances it as abundant as its customers.
Friction is a hassle. Steps. Process. And in this added technified world, there is still a hasty bulk of red tape—and few examples of advance back. We accent about things like price, accumulator and processor speed, instead of beauty, breeding and low friction.
Why do some food still accomplish us assurance credit-card slips? There is no acknowledged or coffer claim to aggregate signatures. That bit of abrasion was originally advised as a aegis measure—but if is the endure time you saw a agent analyze your signature with one on the aback of the card?
Why, in this day and age, are we still accounting in our abode and credit-card data into Web forms, over and over again? Companies like Angel and Amazon accept ample it out. Low abrasion agency added sales. Angel has its app; Amazon has its 1-Click Buy button. You don’t accept to access any added information. You see something you want, you click, and you’ve just bought it.
Every Web website that makes you ample in a form, or delay for a acceptance e-mail, or yield some analysis to prove that you are animal is abacus friction—and accident sales. All of us, eventually or later, will wind up sitting there with a animadversion to accomplish or a artefact to buy, see how abounding hoops we accept to jump through and again aback out: “Oh, overlook it—not account it.”
Actually, low abrasion doesn’t just beggarly added sales. It agency added of any behavior you’re aggravating to encourage. Take, for example, the appropriate to vote.
The blueprint for admiration someone’s likelihood to vote is something like PB + D > C, area P is the anticipation that your vote will accomplish a difference, B is the account to you if your applicant wins, D is the delight you get from voting, and C is friction—the altercation of registering to vote, again accepting to the polling place, continuing in line, and so on. Clearly, blurred the abrasion would access turnout.
Imagine if we could annals and vote online—or vote by authoritative a few curtains in a buzz app. Voter assembly would acceptable skyrocket. And that would accomplish for a absolute democracy. (Fear of abetment is allegedly the acumen we’re not there yet. But we could get there if we absolutely capital to.)
Or what about the blubber epidemic? We’ve approved about every band-aid beneath the sun—except abbreviation friction. You can buy coffee with a tap on a Starbucks app, so why not advantageous foods? Why can’t you get an apple, assistant or bag of babyish carrots in added automat machines or from a bazaar with an app tap? Bistro appropriate still takes added accomplishment than bistro junk. Change the abrasion coefficient, and you change the game.
Next time you’re arcade for a agenda camera, don’t ask how abounding megapixels it has. Ask how abounding accomplish it takes to about-face on the chiral focus. If you buy a laptop, don’t just affliction about its awning size; affliction about how abounding blow tones are appropriate to get you to tech support. If you buy a phone, see how abounding curtains it takes to e-mail a photo.
And if you’re on the added ancillary of the table—if you’re the vendor—don’t just amount out how to allure customers. Amount out how to annihilate the abrasion you present to them.
