Friction-free Product Design

A few weeks ago I read this awesome article by Brenden Mulligan, ‘Reduce Friction, Increase Happiness’. There’s a growing trend toward reducing friction as he points out with Uber, Getaround, and Kayak. As with gamification, friction-free product design is a competitive weapon that has the ability to disrupt industries. Here are a few other awesome startups reducing friction:

• Batch - upload mobile photos in bulk to multiple services
• Groupbookers - get a competitive quote and book the right hotel for your large company or group
• Hipmunk - visually search for the best flight, sorted by “agony”
• PlayHaven - manage in-game marketing and monetization of mobile games in real-time without touching a line of code - Disclaimer: I work there :)

When designing a product, ask yourself:

• How can I reduce the number of steps to do the same thing?
• Can I automate or predict users’ actions?
• How can I speed up the experience? (related: Asynchronous UIs)
• If I can’t eliminate or reduce loading and delays, how can I fake it?
• What’s the pain differential between my product and the alternatives?
• Am I optimizing for the 95%?