This Note attempts to address the conflict between removing friction to improve accessibility and retaining friction which is performing some role in an interface. There are circumstances in which removing a type of friction will diminish an interface and this Note identifies six actions that can be taken. It then offers advice on which ones should be used for particular cases.
This is an unofficial proposal.
User friction in a digital interface creates inaccessibility and accessibility guidance aims to remove this friction to make the interface easy to use for as many people as possible. Some friction, however, is fundamental to the nature of a product or service and removing it can break the system or the user experience rather than enhance it. This Note aims to find a way to identify this 'intentional friction' so that it can be preserved while the 'unintentional friction' that creates unnecessary inaccessibility can be removed.
To Do: It is worth checking the terminology used here fits that used in "Patterns in Game Design" by STAFFAN BJÖRK and JUSSI HOLOPAINEN or any newer similar reference where applicable. This should ensure that standard terms are understood by the industry. Also need to ensure everything is centred on a lens of intentional or unintentional friction and not straying into generic accessibility advice.
There are two main types of intentional friction: generative friction and protective friction. Generative friction creates value whereas protective friction prevents harm.
Educational tools use friction to encourage learning in users. Asking questions and expecting users to remember facts or data creates a memory challenge. Timed quizzes aim to distinguish between effortful retrieval and automatic retrieval (does the user need to work out the answer each time or is the answer itself memorised). This is especially useful in mathematics where automatic retrieval of simple and common calculation answers can free up mental capacity for high-level problem solving.
Bjork and Bjork recommend several ways in which making testing harder can improve learning overall. Spacing out practice sessions to encourage partial forgetting, switching between types of problem, varying learning environments to remove associations between the environment and the subject that would have aided recall, and actively requiring the user to retrieve information from memory before re-presenting facts will all increase friction and make the process harder.
Bjork and Bjork argue that this improves the storage strength of the facts rather than the retrieval strength in the moment. The level of difficulty introduced must, however, be balanced for the user to create a constructive challenge rather than a deterrent challenge.
One of the most widely cited definitions of games was created by Jesper Juul. Juul's definition is based on 6 rules or elements. "A game is 1) a rule-based formal system with 2) variable and quantifiable outcome, where 3) different outcomes are assigned different values, 4) the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, 5) the player feels attached to the outcome, and 6) the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable." By this definition a user experience is only a game if it is effortful and that effort influences the outcome. This requirement for effort constitutes intentional friction.
CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) aim to block malicious automated access to digital resources by presenting challenges that only humans should be able to solve.
See the Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA for more on this topic.
Some friction is designed to discourage destructive behaviours. Gambling services often incorporate deposit limits and mandatory pauses to discourage unhealthy levels of interaction. This could be considered a form of "Slow Design", interfaces that slow down user interactions to encourage the user to interact in a more mindful way.
Microboundaries are interactions that attempt to encourage mindful interactions. Examples are confirmation prompts ("Do you want to continue?") before allowing destructive or irreversible actions. Microboudaries aim to reduce the likelihood of harm due to accidental activation or impulsive decision making.
Adding friction to actions seen as harmful or undesirable is intended to discourage those behaviours.
Identification and authentication mechanisms introduce a different kind of intentional friction. An ideal design would create an insurmountable challenge for someone who should not be accessing the resource while creating minimal friction for someone who should.
Should user identification sit in a third category "Variable Friction" due to the requirement that it should be as frictionless as possible to the right person or persons and as frictionful as possible to everyone and anything else? My opinion would be that it should sit in a distinct category if the proposed remedies are distinct from protective friction. Enabling a user to choose their challenge makes sense for User Identification. Does it make sense for other protective frictions?
This Note focuses on intentional friction in gaming. In the other forms of intentional friction identified it is generally clear what needs to be preserved. If an effort to make a user identification mechanism allows anyone to claim to be that user then it is clear that the mechanism is broken. Similarly the purpose of CAPTCHAs and behavioural interventions are clear and in reviewing an attempt to make them accessible most people would normally agree on whether the mechanism has been broken or not. Friction in educational tools has a large body of work behind it and the frictions involved have specific aims such as encouraging effortless recall, encouraging mindful interaction or impeding immediate recall to encourage better knowledge storage. Again, when one of these frictions is identified it is generally unambiguous whether an accessibility intervention has broken the friction or not.
In gaming the intentional friction is not the means to an end but is the end itself. In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's “Flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience” peak experiences are ones in which challenge and skill are balanced, attention is fully focussed on a task and that task is fully understood (the person knows what they are trying to do). The person receives immediate feedback (either externally or through internal confirmation) and they feel they have control over the outcome. They become fully absorbed by the task, to the point that they lose a sense of self, don't think about anything external to the task and they lose any concept of the passage of time. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about this enjoyable flow state as being a state between boredom (from too easy a challenge) and anxiety (from too hard a challenge). Gaming attempts to offer this flow state. We will refer to too little challenge as the boredom zone and too much challenge as the anxiety zone with the flow state in the middle. The need to balance challenge to the player makes game accessibility a unique use case in terms of intentional friction. This Note will focus on this 'intrinsic' enjoyment from gaming that relies on balancing the challenge to the player. There are also 'extrinsic' motivations available; social status from beating games that are designed to test resilience and perseverance, trophies that state you have beaten a meta-challenge in a game and e-sports which offer material prizes and social status (that could encourage the player to continue despite the boredom of a misaligned difficulty level).
Although the body of the document is going to focus on gaming it could easily address how to deal with protective friction (of the 6 options we identify later we must preserve the challenge if possible or replace it with a friction that achieves the same effect if not). Similarly, generative friction linked to education should be preserved, replaced or rebalanced. Once the cognitive work has been done for gaming it may be quick and easy to apply it to the other spheres.
There is a body of work that highlights the need for some friction in gaming. This means that a standard approach to accessibility of trying to remove all friction or barriers would be inappropriate. Not only would it constitute fundamental alteration of the game which may be considered an unreasonable requirement, but it could actually break the game experience itself.
The existing resources section is currently a direct drag and drop from the GAP analysis. This will be [trimmed | expanded | rewritten] at some point.
Ian Hamilton's Difficulty vs Accessibility talk at GAConf USA 2021 highlighted that there is no fixed difficulty for a game. Games present barriers and players have capabilities and the level of difficulty that arises comes from trying to overcome the given barriers with a user's unique set of capabilities. Disabled people will have reduced capabilities in some respect meaning they will face higher difficulty for the same set of presented barriers. Within the talk he states that "Accessibility = avoiding unnecessary mismatch between capability & barrier". Steve Saylor framed this to say that accessibility is a way to bring the difficulty back towards the intended level.
In the IGDA-GASIG page on how to make games accessible it states: "All games must contain some degree of inaccessibility in order to be a game. There must be some kind of challenge. This necessary inaccessibility varies from game to game. It makes accessibility an optimisation process - thinking about the barriers your game may present, which of those are a necessary part of what makes it fun, and which are not."
In the article Game accessibility course design modules in higher education Thomas Westin describes this as the Game Accessibility Paradox. The author argues that games can be described by a series of strict rules for playing the game which are normative. They can't be changed without fundamentally altering the game and effectively creating a new, different, game. The player interacts with these through game mechanics which are performative. They conclude that the two main approaches for accessibility are removing barriers that aren't needed for core gameplay or creating special games that use a different modality (such as audiogames). They note that a third option is to make modifications that alter the game rules creating a new game.
These examples highlight the need to retain some inaccessible features to preserve the challenge of a game but make no recommendation of a formal process to identify which features need retaining.
Once intentional friction has been identified we need options on how to act.
Westin offers us three ways to make an accessible game.
Hamilton, however, makes an important point in that the difficulty level of a challenge is not universal. It is generated by the interaction of the barriers presented and the player's capabilities which may be diminished in some dimension by a disability. It will also be affected by familiarity with the game itself and familiarity with the game mechanics used.
This suggests two things:
While these will not prevent inaccessibility from increasing the difficulty of a game they may allow it to be rebalanced to a suitable level.
Many games have to balance challenge as the user gets used to the game mechanics. They may do this by making particular game loops harder with tougher enemies and higher skill requirements or by subverting the game loop with new weapons and abilities that need to be learned. There may also be recurring short periods of higher designed challenge that may enter the anxiety level of challenge and provide a sense of achievement when the player beats them even if it takes several attempts (so-called 'boss fights' or 'boss monsters'). These are adjustments to the designed challenge that will affect everybody and in many cases will not create accessibility issues (except where a new weapon or skill introduces new unintentional frictions). The exceptions are where a player's capabilities hinder them from learning or remembering new or modified gameloops and mechanics. Puzzle games also commonly have increasing difficulty levels so these may enable players to find their optimal challenge level.
There are some games that adjust the difficulty of the challenge depending on the skill of the user. They may do this by:
Once we have identified a challenge mechanism that creates inaccessibility we have a series of actions that we may be able to perform.
With a selection of potential remedies available a developer needs to know which one to use in which circumstance.
In a game there is information linked to challenges that needs to be presented to the player. This may entail communicating a game event, confirming a player action or presenting information that gives the player choice (for instance, information about the enemies that can be attacked, the cards that can be turned or information that enables the player to solve a puzzle). Unintentional friction can arise from the way the information is encoded (for instance, a language the player doesn't understand), the way it is presented (if only communicated visually, audibly or through use of colour etc) or a requirement for the player to discover it.
A requirement to learn and remember new game mechanics can also prevent play for players with short term memory loss or reduced information processing capability. Whilst the designed challenge is intentionally increased the additional difficulty arising from cognitive disability is not intentional and does not need to be preserved.
Unintended friction can also arise from assumed knowledge such as local customs which are not known to people foreign to that area or figures of speech which may be hard to understand for some neurodiverse people. These are not part of an intended challenge and so this friction does not need to be preserved.
Where the information being communicated is encoded in a way that would only make sense to some players such as written, spoken or signed language this may present a barrier that prevents play. In most cases this can be remedied by offering alternative encodings selected in the game menu (or signalled by pre-selected preference settings acquired from the platform). In some cases the presentation of the information may also need to change or benefit from changing. Changing the language of written text will not help someone who is print disabled unless that alternative encoding is also spoken or, in some cases, signed. Sign language could be translated into subtitles but it may feel more natural to players for it to be translated to speech in a language they understand.
Offering an alternative encoding constitutes an accessibility related adjustment that preserves the core challenge.
Audio cues and information presented visually in games can often be presented both visually and audibly. Where the visual or the audible information is communicating a game event, confirming a player action or presenting information that presents options to the user (giving the user a choice of card to turn or enemy to attack along with details about that enemy that underpin player strategy) then this can be done both visually and audibly. In some cases game designers may want to make the secondary channel of information presentation optional if it diminishes realism or increases cognitive load.
Multichannel communication constitutes an accessibility related adjustment that preserves the core challenge.
In some cases the challenge is to discern meaning from patterns in the communication channel. Examples of this would be:
We can't make accessibility related adjustments that preserve the core challenge so we must either remove the challenge or replace it with another challenge.
In some cases the information discovery will not be part of the intended challenge. Neurodiverse players may struggle to recognise expressions or emotions from text, speech or graphics but this may be an unforseen barrier in the eyes of the creator. If any information discovery is not part of the intended challenge then it doesn't constitute intentional friction and this friction should not be preserved.
The experienced difficulty for a player is generated by the interaction of their capabilities against the designed challenge. Where the player has reduced capabilities due to a disability this can mean their experienced difficulty is much higher taking them out of a flow state and into the anxiety zone.
This may be caused by:
Some accessibility features such as button remapping, quest reminders, sticky keys etc will be targeted at specific capability mismatches and will make the game playable to the target audience. Although the game will now be playable that doesn't necessarily mean the experienced difficulty now matches the designed challenge however so the challenge may still need to be rebalanced. This is likely to mean reducing the difficulty through one of the discussed mechanisms but could, in some cases, require the difficulty to be increased if the accessibility feature removed some intentional friction.
In Player vs Player (PvP) games players can be ranked based on the skills they demonstrate or how many games they win. They can then be pitched against other players with a similar ranking. This is a good way to enable players to find their flow state regardless of any reduced capabilities or disabilities they may have.
Puzzle games often start off with very simple challenges and get progressively harder with each level attempted. Even if the experienced difficulty is higher someone with reduced capabilities may be able to find a challenge that matches their skill level. Any extra layer of intentional friction added however, should be assessed as to whether it create a disproportionate barrier for people with reduced capabilities. For instance if earlier levels have no time limit and then one is introduced then this would disproportionately affect players whose input mechanisms slow them down.
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) refers to automated processes that adjust the designed challenge based on the players performance or emotions.
Performance based DDA judges how well a player is performing based on metrics such as accuracy in hitting a target, how much damage their characters are taking etc. It can then reduced the designed challenge by making enemies easier to beat, controlling the number of enemies that are attacking or providing better powerups (for instance more ammo, better weapons, health potions etc). This can aim to enforce a set 'failure rate' by increasing the difficulty until the player finds it challenging to win.
Emotion based DDA tries to judge a players emotions usually based on biometric markers such as heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV) or breath patterns to infer the amount of stress the player is under. The game can then adapt the experience to try to achieve the desired balance.
One of the common ways to enable players to find their flow state is to provide difficulty options. This not only accounts for adjustments due to capabilities but also allows players to focus on secondary aspects of the game such as storyline, audio and visuals. These are described as secondary in this context due to the focus on gaming as providing challenge. Difficulty options may be set per game session but players could also be allowed to readjust the settings at will within a play session. This allows for the difficulty level to be reduced for periods of higher designed challenge such as boss fights if the player struggles with the experienced difficulty in these sections.
In flow theory too much friction is said to cause anxiety but anxiety can come from other areas especially in game genres such as horror or action games. Phobias or trauma may magnify this narrative friction beyond the intended levels. Trigger warnings and menu options to remove or obscure these themes can avoid or reduce this unintended additional anxiety and developers can decide whether there is then a need to rebalance the designed challenge based on whether the narrative friction is intended to contribute to it.
I wrote then removed much of the section on "When Intentional Friction deters play" because while there is a lot of friction that deters play (phobias, too much realism triggering PTSD etc) I'm not sure much of it is 'intentional'. The scope of this Note is to explore the conflict between smoothing out friction and retaining challenge so any inaccessibility not linked to the 'challenge' of the game is out of scope. There may be an argument for phobias or trauma creating an unbalanced 'narrative friction' in horror content (see above) but is this in scope?
Balancing the designed challenge of a game should be considered across the whole of a game session. Some games intentionally create anxiety in gameplay with an initially high difficulty level. The challenge is to understand the mechanics then develop and learn a strategy which reduces the difficulty level over repeated plays of the same section of the game. This would initially appear to be outside of the flow state but the skills required in these games involve strategy and memory as much (or more) than they do anything else and they require high concentration to avoid making a mistake. With the understanding that the players avatar will die repeatedly this game event becomes less punishing. This puts these games in a very distinct genre from the action/adventure games they resemble and it can be seen how these games create a flow state.
There may also be sections of a game with a higher designed challenge such as 'boss fights'. These may provide levels of designed challenge that would create anxiety and deter players if they were over long periods of time but as shorter sections they present a challenge that players feel is within their ability.
Some decisions will effect the experienced difficulty across the whole of the game. Accessibility related adjustments that remove the core challenge of any individual game mechanic need to be considered in view of whether there is sufficient challenge left to encourage a flow state. If not then it may be better to replace that challenge with another challenge. In some cases it may not be possible to make the game accessible to a particular demographic since the difficulty can not be adjusted and the challenge can not be preserved or replaced without creating a different game.
Where the game withholds information to create challenge such as the 'fog of war' in real-time strategy games this information should not be revealed if doing so risks removing too much challenge. Accessibility features that remove too much challenge can be just as damaging to playability as the unintentional friction they aim to reduce.