This article has been re-written and re-published based on my original LinkedIn article shared on 25 March 2022.
The best kind of edu-tainment content is that which makes you sit, think, possibly even write about the implications of what you heard. In episode #284 of the UX Podcast, Per Axbom provided that delicious kind of mind-morsel in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it revelation that, as I’ve interpreted it, every iteraction with a user interface is a barrier between a person and their goal.
Disregarding how little blinking matters when listening to an audio podcast, that bold statement made me pause (literally, like I pressed the button). How can a UI component be a barrier if it was designed to help someone solve a problem?
Take a moment to consider the design of the physical world that we occupy and generally tend to interact with, begrudgingly or not. Might I suggest picking an example Everyday Experience like buying a beer, trying to find honey at the grocery store, or booking a hotel room? [read as: You can listen to those in my design podcast. Yes, I’m a shill.]
Say you’re in your living room and craving a nap—a need I’m intimately familiar with.
Every door you need to open or shut along the way to your bedroom is a physical interface that is momentarily keeping you from that sweet, sweet shut-eye. Ramp up the accessible difficulty by using crutches for a sprained ankle or being someone with blind/low vision needing to feel around for the door handles.
If you told me that learning to dance was no different than learning the correographed moves required to enter a door, I might actually think it was easy.
Approach your dance partner—I mean—the door and pause
Reach for their hand(le) with your right arm
Grab hold and twist
Push (or pull) the door with a step forward
Do a quarter-shimmy turn towards it
Pull the door by as you release your grasp
Catch its opposite hand(le)
Twist and push to close
Let go and let it pass behind
💃 ¡Olé!
You’ve gotten so used to System 1 thinking your way through doors that you flow through the steps with the idealised grace of flamenco dancer; no conscious energy needing to be diverted away from the nap that awaits. It doesn’t need to feel like a lot of effort for effort to still be exerted.
If there are steps, there is friction. Friction is a saviour when we’re treading across ice, yet frustrating when we try to Pull a door that’s a Push.
So why have doors in the first place?
Privacy. Temperature control. Reducing nap-disturbing noise coming from your partner clumsily dropping plates in the kitchen (sorry, Viv!).
All useful reasons, but a barrier to entry and exiting nonetheless.
The same is true of the things we ‘touch’ in the digital world; all the little features and UI interactions added with the intent of helping customers get their desired outcomes. Each addition bringing it’s own need to click, tap, drag-and-drop, speak, or swipe through to get where you want to go.
Are each of these barriers inherently ‘bad’? Generally no more so than a door handle, so long as we can see and feel progress being made.
Until the day we control our devices by mere thought, anything we want done will require at least one interaction, like verbally telling an AI* assistant to write and send an email for you, then ~ POOF ~ seeing it done. (*Author’s Note: My original version of this article was published eight months prior to the release of ChatGPT, which in hindsight makes me feel a little like my wish came true haha).
Trouble is, we as both a species and product makers tend to add more than we subtract. New features, new menus, new pages to contain it all. It’s our additive bias at work.
The doors in our homes were added to solve problems like wind and security, but they’ve added a 3-second interupt between us and our beds. New rooms = new doors.
Got more stuff than you have space to put it? Buy a bigger house.
Got more files than your cloud storage can hold? Buy more space.
Got more regulatory risks to address or loopholes to close? Slap another clause into the Terms & Conditions.
Rarely do we give the time, effort, and priority to redesign, refactor, or reduce the things we’ve accumulated or created. But boy-oh-boy do we get a kick out of Band-Aiding an existing solution or maintaining legacy systems long after their Best By dates.
The doors can stay, but maybe it’s time to move those boxes out of the way. One less tripping hazard between sleepy customers and their dreams.
Celebrate what’s been lost. Praise what’s been decluttered. Promote simplicity.
People face enough barriers as it is.
