Joanna Montgomery
Founder and Director
at Little Riot
Friction As a Feature: Designing Products People Don’t Want to Live Without
Talk Synopsis
In product design and tech, “friction” has been framed as the enemy. We’re told to remove it, smooth every interaction, and make everything effortless. The industry’s default to “frictionless” is so ingrained that we rarely stop to ask; are we making products better, or just easier to forget?
This talk flips that script as Joanna explores “good friction” - the intentional moments of resistance that create value, deepen engagement, and make products feel worth coming back to.
Drawing on examples from tech, retail, gaming, and media, we’ll look at why slowing users down, asking for small investments of effort, or creating space for anticipation can be more powerful than removing every obstacle.
About Joanna Montgomery
Joanna Montgomery is a technologist and designer best known for Pillow Talk, an early connected product built for emotional communication. Her work focuses on the real tension between humans and technology - and what it takes to design products people actually care about.
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