Are All Design Frictions Equal? Exploring Types of Frictions and their Perceived Value for Digital Wellbeing

Almoallim, Sultan and Sas, Corina (2025) Are All Design Frictions Equal? Exploring Types of Frictions and their Perceived Value for Digital Wellbeing. In: British HCI Conference 2025 :. ScienceOpen, GBR. (In Press)

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Abstract

Much research on digital wellbeing has focused on interventions for digital self-control while less work explored design frictions (which deliberately aim to inconvenience users) despite their potential to more sensitively account for users’ contexts. To address this gap, we identified five types of design frictions: cognitive, emotional, motivational, social, and physical for which we provided working definitions, and illustrated with design exemplars from the state-of-the-art. We also report workshops with 19 participants to explore these types of frictions and users’ perception of their value for digital wellbeing. We conclude with four design implications for digital wellbeing including supporting design frictions at app level, supporting adaptive design frictions, sensitive design of emotional frictions, and balancing user’s need for privacy in social frictions.