For years, we've been all about making things smooth as hell. Easy booking, faster orders, one-click buys. But now we we see the other side of the coin.

When everything's so fucking easy, we stop thinking about what we're actually buying, doing, watching. We don’t even realize about the resources we're burning when everything is just a click.

What we might need is the opposite of all smooth and easy (1). We might need more friction (2).

We need to slow people down. Make them think before they act. Make it just a bit harder to use up resources or buy something new.

We can do that not just for our customers but also for our teams (3).

We can do this by adding more steps. Want to buy something new? Fill out more forms. Need to use new resources? You’ll have to defend your choice to a fucking committee.

It's not about pissing people off; it's about adding clarity and making people reflect on their choices.

Action question

How can you add friction in the customer experience or at work to create better services for both people and the planet?

Footnotes

(1) What smart people call nudges

(2) What smart people call rational overrides

(3) What smart people call the backstage of a service. It’s the place where workers create the service for others.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help: This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.