Intended friction is the deliberate introduction of obstacles, delays, or required effort into an experience — onboarding, purchase, decision-making, sign-up — to filter for committed participants, increase perceived value, or reinforce a behavior pattern that would otherwise be skipped.
Robert Richman has been one of the more visible proponents of the move in customer- and employee-experience design, arguing that frictionless onboarding can produce shallow engagement while a calibrated obstacle in the right place produces the opposite. Adjacent fields have arrived at similar findings under different names: behavioral economics' "cognitive load as commitment device," game design's onboarding curves, and high-end retail's deliberate scarcity all use friction strategically.
The implicit cost is real: friction in the wrong place leaks users, suppresses conversion, and signals indifference. The discipline of intended friction is choosing where the friction earns its keep — gating access, slowing a destructive action, or marking a transition that should be felt rather than glossed.