A simple question: how many potato chips does someone eat if all the chips are the same color (normal) vs. every 7th chip is dyed red (change in pattern)? Geier (2012) ran this experiment.1 Normal chips: 45 chips eaten average. Red-dyed every 7th chip: 20 chips eaten (56% reduction).
The mechanism: the dyed chip served as a visual interrupt—a moment where you notice you're eating. Without the interrupt, eating is automatic and frictionless. With a tiny friction point (one different chip every few), consumption drops dramatically.
Friction is the obstacle between intention and action. Remove friction and behavior increases. Make It Easy is the principle that reducing friction toward a desired behavior doubles or triples the outcome.
This is the inverse of scarcity or persuasion. You don't need to motivate harder or want it more. You just need to remove the small obstacles that make the behavior slightly difficult. When obstacles are gone, the behavior happens automatically.
Facebook engineered this obsessively: infinite scroll removes the friction of "reaching the bottom of the page," which used to create a natural pause point. Netflix autoplays the next episode, removing the friction of "deciding whether to keep watching." Amazon's one-click checkout removes the friction of "entering payment information again." Each friction removal drives disproportionate behavior increase.
Every friction point is a moment where you have to make a conscious decision. Will I continue? Do I want this enough to take the next step? These decision moments create drops in behavior: some people decide "no" and stop.
Remove the decision point and behavior continues on inertia. You don't decide to scroll more on infinite scroll—you just keep scrolling because scrolling is the path of least resistance. You don't decide to watch the next episode on Netflix—it just plays because playing is the automatic action.
Geier's chip study reveals this: the dyed chip forces a micro-decision ("did I mean to eat another?"). Without that decision point, eating continues on autopilot. The friction of noticing you're eating was the only thing holding behavior back.
Shotton emphasizes this with Facebook: the app is designed to remove every friction point. Can't remember the password? Use phone number. Can't find what you want to like? Infinite scroll auto-generates more. Want to share something? One click. Every potential friction point is removed or minimized.
Friction removal pairs with default selection for maximum effect. A website that has removed friction to checking out AND has your default address selected removes twice the friction. You don't have to decide OR enter information—the path is fully cleared.
This is why credit card storage is powerful: friction removal (don't enter payment info) + default (use the saved card). Same effect with autofill, remembered searches, stored preferences. Each removes a friction point.
The combination is powerful because friction often accumulates. Checking out requires: navigating to checkout (friction 1), entering email (friction 2), entering address (friction 3), entering payment (friction 4), confirming (friction 5). Remove any one and conversion increases 5-10%. Remove all five and conversion increases 50%+.
Step 1: Map the desired behavior step-by-step Write out every action the customer needs to take. "Browse product > select product > go to cart > add to cart > go to checkout > enter shipping > enter payment > confirm order." Each step is a friction point.
Step 2: Identify which friction points kill the most drop-off Not all friction is equal. Some customers abandon at shipping (complicated), others at payment (security concerns), others at confirmation (decision moment). Prioritize by impact.
Step 3: Eliminate the highest-impact friction points first If 30% of customers abandon at payment, removing that friction is worth more than removing friction from a step only 5% abandon. One-click checkout for payment has massive impact.
Step 4: Create defaults for decisions, not choices Remove decisions by auto-selecting. "Ship to your last address?" (default yes) instead of "Enter shipping address" (requires action). "Use your saved card?" (default yes) instead of "Enter payment information."
Step 5: Test friction removal incrementally Remove one friction point, measure conversion. Remove the next, measure again. You'll see which friction points have the most impact. Prioritize testing high-impact removals.
Too much friction removal can feel deceptive or unsafe. If a website remembers everything without asking (password, payment, home address), customers might feel like privacy is being violated. The friction of "are you sure?" serves a function—it creates a conscious moment of consent.
Also, some friction is legitimate: requiring email verification reduces spam accounts; requiring address confirmation reduces shipping errors. Friction that serves quality control is different from friction that's just administrative burden.
The move is to remove administrative friction (entering information you've entered before, navigating to pages you need) while preserving decision friction (confirming major purchases, verifying email, checking address accuracy).
Behavioral-Mechanics → Present Bias: Friction creates a moment where present bias can interrupt behavior. Remove the friction and present bias drives continuous action. Present Bias explains why zero-friction options (infinite scroll, autoplay) are so engaging—they remove the moment where you could choose to stop.
Behavioral-Mechanics → Implementation Intentions: Friction removal works the opposite direction: instead of pairing trigger + automatic action, you remove the friction between intention and action. Trigger Moments & Implementation Intentions creates automatic actions through conditioning; friction removal creates automatic actions through path-of-least-resistance.
Sharpest Implication: You don't need better products or more persuasive marketing. You just need fewer obstacles between the customer and the desired behavior. Most customers want your product—they just abandon because there's friction in the path. Remove the friction and behavior increases without persuasion.
Generative Questions: