Optimizing User Experience: Beyond Seamless & FrictionlessOptimizing User Experience: Beyond Seamless & Frictionless
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Back to feedPost
Kerly's avatar
Kerly Rivas
• Apr 15
A client I'm working with has been obsessed with "seamless" and "frictionless" to the point of wanting to remove basic actions, convinced it will make users' journeys easier and faster.
But there's a difference between removing friction and removing what users already expect to find.
In 2025, users arrive with years of learned patterns. They'll look for a back button, an edit option, a confirmation before an irreversible action. Remove those to feel "modern" and you won't reduce friction, you move it into their brain.
Cognitive friction is still friction. It just doesn't show up until it affects your drop offs and retention rates.
The goal isn't always fewest possible steps. It's removing the right steps and knowing the difference. The hardest part in this project hasn't been the design decisions. It's been sitting with the client, week after week, running the tests together, and letting the data make the case. Until the distinction between 'fewer steps' and 'better experience' finally lands.
Back to feed
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started