Friction analysis
Most CRO test ideas come from someone looking at a page and asking “what could we change”. Friction analysis is the opposite move - find every point in the journey where the user is working harder than they need to, then decide which of those to address.
The practice is part of the research stage of the CRO process, not the ideation stage. The goal isn’t to generate tests, it’s to map the obstacles. The tests come after.
How to do it
Section titled “How to do it”Three complementary methods, usually run together:
- Heuristic walk-through. Take a real purchase journey, slowly, taking notes. Every microsecond of “wait, what?”, every place you have to scroll back, every choice you have to make. Do it on the device the user actually uses. Do it with a sceptic.
- Friction log. Same idea but written as a running list during a real session. The log captures the small annoyances that get rationalised away in retrospect (“I just zoomed in to read that, no big deal” - that’s friction).
- Drop-off pairing. Look at the funnel data for the biggest drop-offs, then map them onto the heuristic notes. A 30% drop-off at “delivery options” plus a heuristic note saying “took me a moment to work out which one was free” is a test brief writing itself.
What counts as friction
Section titled “What counts as friction”- Decisions the user can’t make confidently with the information on the page
- Cognitive load introduced for the business’s convenience rather than the user’s (mandatory account creation, forced choices, “select your country” on a UK-only site)
- Form fields that ask for information you don’t actually need
- Loading states with no feedback
- Microcopy that requires re-reading
- Anywhere the user has to remember something from an earlier step
- Anywhere the user has to switch device, tab, app, or context
Where it stops being useful
Section titled “Where it stops being useful”Friction analysis assumes the user is trying to complete a task and the goal is to remove obstacles to completion. That maps well to checkout, account setup, multi-step forms, lead capture. It maps badly to discovery experiences, browse flows, and comparison-heavy categories where “slowing down” is what buying looks like. A jewellery PDP where the customer is meant to linger isn’t friction-rich, it’s deliberately slow. Treating it like a checkout step and stripping it down will tank conversion.
The other place it falls down is when the “friction” is the offer itself. A signup that asks for too much information at step one is friction. But a £500 product where the buyer hesitates on the price isn’t friction in the same sense - that’s the offer doing its job badly, not the UX adding load. Confusing the two leads to test programmes that polish the journey while the proposition stays broken.