Studio Note #19: The Squeaky Wheel.
The store did everything right. I only remember the crappy cart.
Last week I grabbed a shopping cart with one bad wheel.
It wasn't unusable. In fact, it wasn't even bad enough to justify walking back and swapping it for another one. I only needed a few things and I was in a hurry, so I decided I'd just live with it.
Every few feet, the wheel would catch. Thunk.
Another few feet. Thunk.
It wasn't ruining my trip to the store. It was just...wildly noticeable.
When I finished shopping, I realized something.
The store was clean. The shelves were stocked. Everything I needed was exactly where I expected it to be. The checkout was quick. By every meaningful measure, it was a perfectly good experience.
And yet, when I thought back on that trip later, I wasn't thinking about any of those things.
I was thinking about the cart.
That's the thing about friction.
People rarely remember the dozens of things that worked exactly as they should.
Those are invisible because they're expected.
What stands out are the little interruptions that pull us out of an otherwise good experience.
Businesses work the same way.
Your customers expect your emails to be answered. They expect your website to make sense. They expect your proposal to be easy to read. They expect invoices to be accurate and the phone to be answered.
When those things happen, they don't earn applause.
They simply disappear into the background, allowing your expertise to take center stage.
But when one of those touchpoints creates unnecessary friction, it becomes disproportionately memorable.
Branding isn't always about adding something remarkable.
Sometimes it's about removing the thing that shouldn't be noticed in the first place.