FRICTIONWARE

What is Frictionware?

Frictionware uses technology to preserve the productive difficulty that learning requires.

These small, interactive experiences ask users to pause, interpret, choose, test, annotate, build, or reflect. Rather than automating intellectual work, frictionware creates structures that help people practice attention, judgment, creativity, and discernment.

Some frictionware takes the form of a game or simulation. Other examples function as reading tools, writing environments, decision-making exercises, reflective activities, or digital assignments. What connects them is a shared principle: good learning does not always come from making a task faster or easier. Sometimes technology should help us slow down, notice more, and do the work that matters.