This is the translation of an article I wrote in Portuguese in October 2022.
Our brain spends practically every moment making decisions. This process seems completely exhausting, and it would be, hadn't we learned some mechanisms that unconsciously help us in this task. Usually called heuristics, they are very common when we talk about UX, referencing the mental shortcuts that users take unconsciously when interacting with a product or interface.
It is possible to find numerous lists of design principles on the web, each company with its manifesto on interface, usability, and experience. Human-centered design takes into consideration that the goal of building a solution should be to meet the needs and desires of the user.
But, what is behind a person's desire? What are the ethical limits for constructing some solutions?
When we think about product design teams, research is directly focused on understanding the needs of users, that is, how we can give people what they need. But what they need is not necessarily what they say they want. Our desire exists within the finitude of things we know. In the user experience universe, it is customary to understand that users want to perform tasks, the famous Jobs To Be Done.
A user says they want a specific feature because they believe it will be responsible for helping them perform a certain task, even if unconsciously. However, the task needs to be thought of beyond the action that will be performed, focusing on the desire of the person performing it.
“The precise context of design is the indeterminacy of the human. Design has never been about giving someone or some group what they ask for but what they wish they had asked for and retrospectively pretend that they did ask for.”
— Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design
Practical examples
When you write an email using Gmail’s service, the user who writes the words “attached” in the body of the email but doesn’t attach anything, receives the following message:
How many times have you forgotten to send an attachment? There is a big probability the person forgot the attachment, so this friction is the right path - it will be good the majority of the time.
We can observe the same in Slack - when sending @channel in your channels, you notify everyone there — even people in other time zones, who may even be outside working hours.
A warning beforehand, with an illustrated animation, provides visibility on the impact of the action on other users, giving you the option to proceed or use other possibilities (like @here, which notifies who is online at that moment).
These examples help us understand that the people who create the products know we make decisions with many other things in mind during the day, so an extra reminder is worthwhile when the decision can have a future impact that was not desired.
However, if you make a mistake in any of the situations above, a second email or an apology to the team can remedy the situation.
Things get complicated when we add desperation and ill intent to the mix.
In 2022, about 58.7% of the Brazilian population was at some level of food insecurity. More than 125 million people were unsure whether they would be able to eat shortly or were not eating enough, with about 33 million of these going hungry.
Making a decision with a lot on your mind during a busy workday is different from deciding with the desperation of hunger knocking at your door.
Is the decision made in this second scenario that companies aim for when they offer products like payroll loans using Auxílio Brasil (a government aid for people without an income during the pandemic) as a guarantee.
“There was nothing I could do! I'm just a designer!”
Fair enough, it probably wasn’t your decision as a designer to create this product or bring it to the company. But wasn't it you who created the journey, facilitating for the user to apply for a loan in an extremely simple way, with “the least amount of friction possible”? Probably yes.
It is a common understanding that friction is something to be avoided at any cost in the journey, either because we believe that the user wants to perform actions as quickly as possible, without thinking, or because we want, as a company, for them to perform these actions.
However, situations where friction is created to meet company demands are not uncommon — such as, for example, providing sensitive data without adequate information about its use in exchange for extremely significant discounts in pharmacies (a very common practice in Brazil).
“Friction can be a good thing when you want your users to self-reflect, understand something deeply, reconsider widely held assumptions or adopt healthy behavioral habits.” - Jeff Link
Ok, now what?
The common saying “we are not the user” should be taken beyond simple deliverables, such as personas or journey maps. Working on empathy skills also means knowing how to create boundaries for the greater good, by understanding well the tasks (JTBD) they want to perform in their journey. Therefore, it is necessary that, as designers, we do not stop questioning.
Question yourself about which situations need guardrails, and about which frictions bring benefits to the user. Think carefully about which task the person really wants to perform in that context, making sure to think about what situation the user is in when making decisions in their journey. Ask yourself what information the person needs to make a truly informed decision.
Reduce friction in the journey whenever possible, but be careful not to allow users to make decisions that harm them. You know how to create the paths, take advantage of your voice to create the best possible ones.