Have you ever tried to find information on a website, or tried to cancel a service and it became so difficult that it almost felt like the information was hidden? That happened to me recently. I was trying to cancel a service and finding the information was extremely difficult.
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When I was unable to find the cancellation information, I started to look for a customer service phone number or email or any sort of contact information. I found a chatbot, but then I ran into the issue of dealing with a chatbot and the information about cancellation was not there either. I then requested a way to speak to customer service and was given an email address instead. From there I was able to contact the company and request cancellation.
In the past it would have just been a telephone number you could call or a live chat to get help from. But now as companies embrace their digital footprint, they want to use call centers less and use their digital footprint more, which usually means an FAQ page or a live chat and now AI. If these things are properly updated and structured well, it is a breeze to find what you are looking for. If they are not, you end up stuck in a loop due to a lack of information and that loop is what develops an information friction.
Information friction is what happens when people cannot quickly find, understand, or act on information an organization is responsible for providing. A complicated topic can still be communicated clearly. Friction is what is left over when clarity was possible and the organization did not deliver it.
What Counts as Information Friction?
Information friction shows up in a few different ways; each friction loop does not feel the same when you are in them.
For example, if you are looking for something technical on a website somewhere and you are unable to find it because it is not indexed properly or it is somewhere in a PDF that is not updated or the page is not labeled correctly because it is in company jargon and acronyms.
Another example of a loop is the form that you are suppose to fill out is not active or has some form of errors, instructions are missing or no clear person to reach. Then you add the accessibility friction which consist of if this information in available in multiple languages or if there is assistive technology available. These things can take up an extra twenty minutes trying to figure out. If people have to call, search repeatedly or ask social media for a basic answer, the communication has failed, even though the information technically exists somewhere on the website.
Why Do Companies Make Cancellation So Hard?
In my situation, when I finally got an email address and reached out to customer service. I was not told what I needed to provide prior, so I decided to give the last four digits of my account number, full name, email and phone number. It took them seventy-two hours to get back to me and tell me they needed additional information to verify my identity. A process of cancellation ventured into week-long process due to the back and forth.
When I go through something like that, I think there is a possibility the company is making it difficult on purpose, trying to put you in a loop until you get frustrated enough to give up. A Princeton University study called Dark Patterns at Scale analyzed a crawl of roughly 11,000 shopping websites and found interface design choices built to deceive people and drove them away from the decision they actually want to make. Burying a cancellation like this is called the Roach Motel pattern, easy to get into and hard to get out of.
The FTC has sued companies over this too, including Match Group, which agreed to a 14 million dollar settlement in 2025 for using dark patterns that made subscriptions difficult to cancel. When I see things like that, I think it’s part of a pattern to deter you and that changes how I see the brand. It should just be simple, a phone number, an email, a chat, some option that actually lets you cancel. But that is not always the case.
Is All Friction Deliberate?
Dark patterns are not the case for every company. There are companies that make the information readily available and let you cancel with ease. There are other companies that participate in dark patterns. And there are other companies that are simply not organized enough to have their websites or their information readily available for their customers.
A lot of that comes down to staying updated on the latest technology and providing the appropriate information a consumer is looking for. It falls on the company’s responsibility, or lack of it, to keep their site updated and keep the structure of the site user friendly. That is an infrastructure issue and that infrastructure also consists of knowledge of ongoing technology, things like AI chatbots and user experience. It includes whether the site can provide accessibility through different languages, or for someone dealing with a learning disability. Information in general should be structured properly.
Why Does Friction Hurt More in High-Stakes Moments?
Information friction is harder to deal with when people are stressed and in high-stakes situations, because they are looking for guidance, they are in need and they already have their back against the wall. Whether it is health care, benefits, or emergency information, they are looking for some sort of information that gives them answers or guidance to what they are trying to solve. In those high-stakes situations, it is important to have the appropriate information available to the user.
In lower-stakes situations, like something subscription based, having that information available still matters, because it alleviates frustration either way. The general consensus is frustration on the part of the user, because the user is looking for information and they are not looking to spend multiple minutes and hours searching for it as if it is hidden.
What Should Organizations Actually Do?
Organizations need to understand the importance of their own sites and understand that people will visit to get the information they came for. If that information is not indexed properly and if the site does not have a good user interface, it just causes frustration, as well as discernment concerning what your brand actually stands for. Making sure your information is readily available and accurate is extremely important.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is information friction?
It’s what happens when people can’t quickly find, understand, or act on information an organization is responsible for providing. Sometimes that means the answer is buried, sometimes it means the answer is there but written in a way nobody can follow, sometimes it means you know what to do and there’s no way to actually do it. Either way, the person walks away assuming the organization is indifferent, incompetent, or hiding something, whether or not that was ever true.
Are dark patterns illegal?
It depends on the tactic and where you are, but the FTC is not treating this as a gray area anymore. The 14-million-dollar settlement with Match Group in 2025 shows that using manipulative design to block cancellation can carry real financial and legal consequences now, not just a bad Yelp review.
What’s the difference between a dark pattern and a company that’s just disorganized?
A dark pattern is on purpose. Somebody designed that cancellation flow to be confusing. A disorganized site usually isn’t malicious, it’s a company that never got around to updating its content or its accessibility. Different problem, different fix, but from where the user is standing, it feels exactly the same.
Why does friction feel worse when someone is stressed?
Because someone looking for benefits information, disputing a bill, or trying to find health guidance already has their back against the wall. They don’t have the patience to absorb delay the way someone casually browsing does. They’re already dealing with something real.
How should organizations fix information friction?
Start by treating repeated customer questions as evidence instead of noise, they’re pointing directly at what’s missing or unclear. Then go through your own site the way a stressed, impatient user actually would, not the way your internal team is used to navigating it.
I am an executive communications strategist with experience in government, media and corporate organizations. I write about AI, the workforce and what responsible communication looks like when technology moves faster than people are ready for.