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Software Engineering vocabulary · Web, Mobile and Interface Development

Friction

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈfrɪkʃn/nounCommon term

In software engineering, friction means: Anything in an experience that slows users down or makes a task harder, such as extra steps, long forms, unclear labels or slow loading.

In Turkish: sürtünme, zorluk, engel

How it is used

Teams try to remove or reduce friction in key flows like sign-up and checkout. Sometimes designers add friction on purpose, for example a confirmation step before deleting an account. The adjective is frictionless.

Example sentences

  1. Asking for a phone number at sign-up adds friction we don't need.

  2. We removed friction from checkout by allowing guest orders.

Common collocations

  • reduce friction
  • add friction
  • points of friction
  • frictionless experience
  • cognitive loadThe amount of mental effort a person needs to understand and use something; too much of it makes people slow, confused or likely to give up.
  • pain pointA specific problem, frustration or obstacle that users experience, such as a confusing step, a long wait or a missing feature.
  • user flowA diagram or sequence that shows the screens, steps and decisions a user goes through to complete one task in a product, such as resetting a password.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Web, Mobile and Interface Development

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