Low friction is very, very important when it comes to internal tools. I’ve done a lot of videos about low friction and about having the right amount of friction. But in this case, we’re going to focus on low friction. Low friction is necessary when you’ve had problems with people using the tool. Maybe you’ve had problems with information being entered, or with people providing accurate, relevant information. And if it’s not a high-stakes environment, meaning that a mistake isn’t going to torpedo everything, then you want an almost frictionless way for people to provide those details. Once you’ve built that habit, that behavior over time, then you can begin to introduce more guiding factors or conditions around how information is submitted by your users or your team.
With low friction, we’re looking at everyday activities: updating projects, changing dates, logging time, updating tasks, or recording progress. We want a situation where someone logs into the application, whether it’s a traditional, off-the-shelf tool or a custom-built tool, and they’re taken directly to where they need to make those updates. If updating projects is the primary activity that almost everyone on your team performs, then that should be the first thing they see. Keep it simple. Projects. Tasks. Dates. Assignments. Depending on what your team needs, you may not need much more than that. Give them a simple interface where they can add what’s necessary without constantly filling out unnecessary information. That’s why choosing the right tool matters. You want a tool that supports the way your team works.
Some traditional, off-the-shelf tools simply won’t allow this level of flexibility. In that case, you either choose a tool that’s built for your industry or create a custom solution that fits your workflow. You can’t force a rigid tool to become something it was never designed to be. But if you’re tied to a platform, maybe you’ve been using it for six or seven years, and migrating isn’t realistic right now, you can still look for workarounds. Create simpler views. Reduce what people see when they log in. Only show the information that’s relevant to the task they’re trying to complete. The goal is to reduce friction. Reduce the number of decisions they have to make. Reduce that feeling of being overwhelmed by too many options. You have to remove that.