Don’t be afraid of friction in UX

Nobody said finance was easy.

If you’re in UX, you’ve probably heard people say time and time again:

“simple is better!”

“just make it easy for the user!”

But, this is definitely not the case when it comes to fintech. Financial apps are not like others, for two reasons. [1] Managing your finances and investments is an absolutely vital function because it guides your life through your spending. [2] Many people struggle with understanding finance, and opt for hiring a financial advisor. For these reasons, financial apps should be treated with caution because of how much is at risk. Should everything about these apps be “easy to use” or “effortless”? No.

“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” — Confucious

Instead, fintech apps should carefully and intentionally use friction in their apps in order to slow down the user’s process and make them think about what they are doing. Using friction in your fintech is an opportunity to:

• build trust with your users by showing you have their best interests at heart
• give your users confidence to invest, as they are being properly educated along the way
• prevent users from making grave mistakes, such as in the next example

Grave Consequences

A sobering example from Robinhood

In some cases, bad fintech UX can be life or death. A 20-year old Robinhood customer died by suicide after seeing a $730,000 negative balance on his Robin hood account [source]. The kicker? The balance did not accurately show what the customer owed — it was just a temporary balance while his money settled into his account. The customer’s suicide note stated that he had no idea what he was doing, and wondered why he was even given the power as an uneducated, young investor, to trade so much money so effortlessly.

Creators of apps with this amount of responsibility have a duty to deeply educate investors about where their money is going.

As I see it, a few things could have prevented this horrible result. Robinhood should have provided a cautionary message…