Beautiful Models: Friction

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“What is friction?”

“It’s a conceptual model from Physics extended through metaphoric transfer outside of Physics.

Anything that negatively impacts the running of a process – in terms of effort, time, or experience, perceived or otherwise – can be thought of as friction.

Taken individually, I call them friction points.

I call friction points that impact experience, irritants.”

“So optimization in this case means the identification and elimination of friction points – removing friction.”

“It can also mean adding friction, in order to make undesirable behavior harder.”