Please don’t make it easy

For decades, usability has taught us to remove friction. Now AI is taking that mission to an entirely new level. In this provocative talk, Marília Moita questions the assumption that less effort always means a better experience, exploring what we might lose when everything is designed to be frictionless.

For decades, usability has taught us to remove friction. Make it faster. Make it simpler. Make it easier.
Now AI is taking that mission to an entirely new level. More efficiency. More effectiveness. Less effort.
So what could possibly be wrong with that?
In this talk, Marília Moita explores the uncomfortable side of frictionless experiences and questions one of the most established assumptions in Design: that making things easier is always the right goal.
As AI increasingly removes effort from our interactions with products and services, the question becomes not only what we can make easier, but what we might be losing in the process.
Not all friction is a problem to solve. Some forms of effort can shape how people think, decide and engage with an experience.
This talk invites us to reconsider what “easy” really means and whether less effort always leads to better experiences.