Design Frictions for Mindful Interactions

Abstract

Design frictions, a term found in popular media articles about user experience design, refer to points of difficulty occurring during interaction with technology. Such articles often argue that these frictions should be removed from interaction flows in order to reduce the risk of user frustration and disengagement. In this paper we argue that, in many scenarios, designing friction into interactions through the introduction of microboundaries, can, in fact, have positive effects. Design frictions can disrupt "mindless" automatic interactions, prompting moments of reflection and more "mindful" interaction. The potential advantages of intentionally introduced frictions are numerous: from reducing the likelihood of errors in data-entry tasks, to supporting health-behaviour change.

Self-Control in Cyberspace

“…We start by outlining the basics of the underlying psychological research. In doing so, we extend current applications of dual system theories in DB-CIs [2,45,145,146] with the concept of 'expected value of control', which the neuroscience literature considers central in explaining why success at self-control fluctuates over time and with emotional state [28,77,82,156,167,186]. An overview of the resulting model is shown in Figure 1.…”

“…For the purposes of the present paper, we note that none of the papers reviewed relied on dual systems models of self-regulation [cf. 45,145].…”

“…Yet, while the challenge of supporting self-control over use of always-connected digital devices has become widely discussed, our understanding of how best to approach it remains limited [cf. 45,115,116,195]. While a growing number of studies have developed and evaluated novel design interventions, no systematic reviews have mapped design features in the hundreds of digital self-control tools that currently exist on the app and web stores [cf.…”

“…Meanwhile, the dual systems and valuebased models prominent in current cognitive neuroscience research on self-regulation 1 [22,28,165,168,191,200] have yet to be applied [cf. 45,145].…”

Vol. 2 n. 4 | 2017 | FULL ISSUE

“…Something we will explore in more detail later in this article, but worthwhile flagging now, is the consideration of decentering the human in the design, or here, decentering the passenger and their immediate perceived or reported needs of getting from A to B quickly. Such considerations may entail introducing design friction into the interaction or user experience (Cox, Gould, Cecchinato, Iacovides, & Renfree, 2016). It may produce novel, unusual and innovative results to experiment by diverting from the proven and often mission-critical pathway of a passenger-centric design approach, and then juxtapose and contrast these diverging designs.…”