Technical jargon: What does Friction mean?

Even if the small, subtle difference stands out neither acoustically nor visually: No, Friction is not Fiction. Or is it? "No friction" is no longer an invention, but reality, especially when we talk about the success of the big omnivore Amazon. While the shopping experience in our country has been glued together with Siroop, data protection and other frictions, the company from Seattle demonstrates with Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh what "no friction" can be: efficient consumption, whether online or offline.

No more obstacles

But we are only just entering the age of "human-centered design," where people are supposed to consume without friction, obstacles or barriers, but preferably only online. "No Friction" has therefore recently made it into the meeting rooms of marketing departments and means that target groups should no longer have any obstacles in their way if they are interested in a product or even want to make a purchase. The personas, consumers, users or whatever the people are called to whom something can be sold should therefore be able to do this without any problems or obstacles, so the order goes. Unfortunately, this is not understood: To make this possible, friction is needed. Friction, discussions, tensions in the process are needed, because otherwise our strategies, concepts and measures hardly differ from each other any more, because in German the word actually means "friction", and this usually generates heat. Sometimes a fire is even lit and something new rises from the ashes. Like offline stores without cash registers, for example.

*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the section "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.