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Understanding Friction in User Experience


Understanding The Relationship Between Friction and UX

COVID optimized consumer marketing is more imperative as users alter the way they search and ask. Here is how increases in internet usage have caused marketers to reconsider their strategies.

Removing friction in the user experience as customers navigate your site is essential to understanding your audience and what they feel is intuitive. At Tandem.Buzz, a Fort Lauderdale digital marketing agency, we are experts at understanding friction and creating a friction-free culture for the customer. Here is everything you need to know about what causes friction so you can better guide your audience down the pipeline. 

What Is Friction in User Experience? 

Friction is anything that can cause a sticking point or stagnation in a user as they maneuver throughout the website and follow their journey down the funnel. A great way to think about friction is thinking of anything that wouldn’t be intuitive to a user. Here’s a Tandem SEO Insider tip: our team of specialists in search engine optimization finds friction in user experience by observing user behavior through behavioral analytics. You can also find friction through lab testing, eye tracking, click tracking, and observing rage or repeated click impressions. 

What Makes Friction 

Here are some items that create friction in digital marketing:

  • Amount of clicks it takes a user to complete a conversion
  • Confusing or wordy instructions
  • Long forms 
  • High effort interactions

Forms of Friction in Digital Marketing 

There are two forms of friction in user experience: static and kinetic. These two types of friction can confuse your user as they navigate through content and learn what they need to do as they advance to the next step in their journey down the marketing funnel. 

Static Friction Meaning

Static friction can be defined as the frictional force that is applied to an object, and the object remains still until the force of static friction is overcome. There will always naturally be a bit of friction in the user experience. However, static friction is when there is excessive friction in too many locations, especially those areas that are typically intuitive to a user.

An example of static friction would be a user clicking the Home button and being directed to an alternate page or not going to a new page at all.

Kinetic Friction Defined 

Kinetic friction is a force that happens between two surfaces that are passing past each other. This friction in digital marketing opposes the motion and attempts to reduce the speed at which the two surfaces past one another. 

A great example of kinetic friction is poor storytelling. Poor storytelling can cause a user’s interest to wonder as they second guess whether or not they truly want to continue their journey down the funnel. If the blog is too long, their interest may wane. If there is additional friction in user experience along the way, then there are high chances you have already lost the user. 

Using a Digital Marketing Team to Find Friction 

At Tandem.Buzz, we are able to locate natural patterns in customers’ interactions with our clients’ websites to pinpoint friction in the user experience. Our team of digital marketers knows how to use just enough friction to keep leads coming in through our PPC services in Fort Lauderdale. We consider every aspect when creating strategies, and we find how to increase online sales through Google Ads

 

Contact us today at (954) 519-4114 to learn more about how our team can help you find friction in the user experience throughout your website, and “bee” sure to ask about how our social media marketing agency in South Florida can help create a buzz around your business!