Originally written in French. Translated by AI — the meaning has been preserved, not the prose.
Short definition
The level of classification of customer feedback at which the feedback bears on a precise element of the product: a screen, a feature, a filter, a button, a form, an unexpected behaviour.
Full definition
"Friction" ordinarily designates, in UX vocabulary, anything that slows down or discourages a user, from the micro-irritant to an obstacle spanning a whole journey.
In the classification of customer feedback worked on here, the adjective "local" does the work: the friction point is located. It can be pointed at on a screenshot — the filter that resets, the export button that's hard to find, the field you have to retype, the form that's too long. A diffuse slowdown across a whole journey doesn't belong to this tier.
It is the most tactical of the four levels, and it remains indispensable: it is the only granularity at which a fix is directly actionable.
Usage in the field
This level feeds design and the backlog. It also provides material for ergonomics reviews and batches of fixes, where irritants with no functional connection are handled together.
Synonyms and variants
Irritant, local friction, pain point, interface verbatim.
Not to be confused with
- Bug — a gap between observed behaviour and specified behaviour. A friction point can be perfectly compliant with the specification and still be annoying.
- Product capability — what the tool should make possible, independently of the screen that enables it.
- Use case / JTBD — the act of work the customer is trying to accomplish.
- Business stake — the customer's business objective or organizational constraint.
Examples
"The filter resets" — located, reproducible, fixable as it stands.
"The export button is hard to find" — no capability is missing; it is access to it that jams.
Ambiguities / debates
The border with the bug is the most debated in practice: a support team happily classes as a defect what a design team classes as friction, and the classification decides the handling route. The sense retained here doesn't settle the route, it only notes that compliance with the specification isn't enough to move a piece of feedback out of this tier.