To paraphrase Jeff Veen, it's essential to make the right thing the easy thing. And conversely, to make the harmful thing impossible or nearly impossible to do. In the Heath brothers' book, Switch, they apply the concept to discuss how to effect change. To cause disruption, even...
What killed Napster? Conscience? Ethics? Nope. Friction. The same friction that makes music piracy still a fringe activity.
iTunes killed P2P music sharing by charging Napster users and their less techno-savvy friends a buck a song. They nailed it by putting payment negotiation behind a simple password (and later a fingerprint). The card stays in the wallet, the mp3 conversion and metadata management tools sit on archive.org while people tap, tap, tap their phones and tap Napster into obscurity.
Convenience is a killer feature because friction is so powerful. To borrow another Heath Bros. concept, it's the opposite of sticky. And it's all relative - a race to the bottom.
I was diagnosed thirty years ago with Type 1 Diabetes. There's no cure but thanks to the miracle of advancing biotech and the dicey human enterprise of self-discipline and private insurance, a long life is within my grasp. But managing this disease serves as a great lesson on how friction cannot only increase engagement with a product, but also can save lives.
To be a healthy diabetic, you have to know your blood sugar, the number (normal is within 80 and 120) that communicates whether you need food (too low) or insulin (too high). Too high over time leads to blindness, loss of vision, heart disease and too low means you better not be doing anything that requires clear thinking or communication (think: intoxicated).
These four images represent three decades of progress in monitoring blood glucose.
The Glucometer M was a revolutionary development back in the late 1980's. Before this generation of monitors, you had to hold a test strip up to the vial and guess which range your bg was closer to kind of like the first image. Imprecise. Nightmare.
But even then, checking your sugar with this technical marvel required the following steps:
- Prick finger, apply (a lot of) blood to test strip. Push button on meter.
- Wait until you hear beeping (usually 90-120 seconds).
- When you hear the beep, wipe the strip with a tissue, Insert strip into the machine.
- Wait another minute or two for your reading.
- Repeat 3-8 times daily.
Fast forward 15 years (for example that Contour Next USB) and the steps go like this:
- Push button on meter.
- Wait until you hear beeping (usually 2-5 seconds).
- When you hear the beep, prick the finger, apply (a drip of) blood to test strip..
- Wait ten to fifteen seconds for your reading.
- Repeat 3-8 times daily.
But in 2015, it's even easier. And it's way more data rich. It goes like this.
- Once a week, use a device to insert a tiny sensor under your skin.
- Twice a day, check your sugar with a strip meter (as above)
- Anytime you want, glance at your watch to see not only what your sugar is at that moment, but where it's been and where it's going.
I tried that Dexcom Continuous monitor for two weeks and it seems impossible to go backward to spend even the 2 minutes 6x a day when I can know my number as easily as I flip my wrist.
You want to make your thing irresistible?
Simple.
Kill the friction.
And you can disrupt and create the future. Plus you'll create friction to keep your customers from going to your competitors.