Let’s dive in!<\/p>\n
What is a friction log?<\/h2>\n
A friction log is a document that captures a list of challenges, difficulties, or frustrations a customer might encounter using your product.<\/p>\n
What is product friction in SaaS?<\/h2>\n
Put simply, product friction describes anything <\/em>that causes your users difficulty when using your SaaS.<\/p>\n There’s no better way of understanding usability than digging into where friction occurs across the entire user experience<\/a>. That’ll give you the best chance to surface actionable steps to improve things.<\/p>\n Now we’ve covered the core concept of friction, let’s explore two of the major categories.<\/p>\n Is there anything more frustrating than failing to hit your target?<\/p>\n This sort of friction is about exactly that: things that stop your user from achieving their goals. That could be being greeted with an unfamiliar error message, struggling to complete a task, or not being able to find help. These are all examples of function friction.<\/p>\n Let’s say you run a photo editing product, and a customer is having a great time tweaking and customizing their pics. All of a sudden, they realize they can’t export the image to the right file type!<\/p>\n Opportunity friction is subtly different from function friction. It describes the gap between what your users want to achieve in a workflow and the current capabilities of your SaaS.<\/p>\n Not all friction is bad.<\/p>\n Introducing it can<\/em> be a sensible design decision – think of it as ‘friction with a purpose’.<\/p>\n That might mean slowing down the sign-up process to make sure users are absorbing all the relevant information.<\/p>\n What about negative friction, then?<\/p>\n Errors, bugs, delays, a confusing UI – any sort of needless frustration. That doesn’t get users invested in your SaaS in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n You want to reduce friction that fits this category as much as possible. But to do that, you need to understand which bits of your production are causing friction in the first place.<\/p>\n The best product managers have a deep understanding of customer needs – and friction logs are an incredibly powerful tool for building that sort of user empathy.<\/p>\n Friction logs provide a factual basis to cut through the noise and prioritize effectively by highlighting areas to improve.<\/p>\n What does that look like in practice? You could identify a series of key journeys – signup<\/a>, activation<\/a>, referral, or checkout to name a few. Then, create friction logs for distinct parts of those journeys.<\/p>\n Those logs will quickly drive out a roadmap<\/a> of areas to improve.<\/p>\n Friction logs help you step out of the role of a SaaS owner, product manager, or developer… and into the world of a customer.<\/p>\n By working through challenges from their perspective, you will very quickly start to build a healthy level of user empathy. The role of the developer advocate is increasingly important in the world of SaaS, as organizations search for ways of improving user engagement.<\/a><\/p>\n A friction log can help you recreate the issues raised by customers, putting you in the best possible position to spot bugs.<\/p>\n Remember to send a release note<\/a> out as soon as you’ve completed the fix: those sorts of product updates will make a big difference to your customers.<\/p>\n A friction log is a valuable store of information. It’s a lightweight way to create, document, and share insight both within and across teams.<\/p>\n They ensure everyone has access to a view of friction points across the entire user journey, which means:<\/p>\n Creating friction logs is an excellent way to identify opportunities <\/a>to improve things. Focus on key problem areas, brainstorm a range of ideas, and quickly implement them to understand if they help address product friction or not.<\/p>\n Working in an agile way enables you to move forward quickly with minimal assumptions.<\/p>\n We’ve established the important role friction logs can play for any SaaS. But how frequently should you be looking at adding to your logs?<\/p>\n It’s important to think about revisiting friction logs as a continual process – not a one-and-done activity.<\/p>\n As your product evolves and changes, you’ll inevitably introduce new points of friction. You need to map out and understand these areas so you can inform future development, building as much empathy with your users as possible.<\/p>\n With that being said, there are a few key phases where doing a friction log can be particularly impactful:<\/p>\n Friction logs aren’t technical documents, which means anyone who uses your product or service can create them.<\/p>\n While typically Product, Growth, UX and Design teams take the lead on owning and maintaining logs, the burden shouldn’t fall completely on their shoulders. Getting your technical team members involved is a fantastic way of building developer advocacy.<\/p>\n You don’t need to be massively experienced to create a friction log.<\/p>\n In fact, new hires are perfect candidates. Why? Because they’re able to more effectively spot issues or gaps others in the team might gloss over. It’s also a great way of teaching them about the product.<\/p>\n The more collaborative the process, the more effective your friction logs will be.<\/p>\n In this section of the article, we’re going to break down the specific, actionable steps necessary to build up friction logs.<\/p>\n First things first, you need to hone in on a specific area. A good way of simplifying your decision is focusing on ‘aha moments<\/a>‘ because identifying and overcoming friction points in these areas is your fastest route to delivering value.<\/p>\n You might also get ideas from looking at user feedback<\/a>, whether that’s from a new launch, general customer satisfaction scores, or direct feedback to your customer success team.<\/p>\n Here’s an example: you could collect NPS survey responses<\/a>, apply relevant tags, then look to visualize the data to identify areas causing challenges and impacting user loyalty.<\/p>\n Make sure to include relevant context, such as the use case, the environment, or the features in question. It’s a critical part of any good friction log.<\/p>\n Remember that ideally, you want your friction logs to follow the same template. That makes them easy for anyone in the organization to pick up and understand.<\/p>\n Having your friction logs structured similarly also makes them easier to write.<\/p>\n Sometimes, more detail isn’t the answer. A simple color code can add a huge amount of value to your friction logs by enabling readers to quickly determine the type of issue they’re facing.<\/p>\n The example below is a nice, clear color-coded system you might want to recreate.<\/p>\n Remember earlier in the article, where we discussed that friction logs weren’t technical documents? A friction log template can help you get the structure right.<\/p>\n You should strike a balance of being warm, friendly, accessible, and conversational including enough relevant detail to be practical.<\/p>\n By writing the first friction log yourself, you help build better working practices with your team. Ultimately, that’s going to help everyone build a better understanding of friction areas and the experience of users encountering them.<\/p>\n It’s important to understand the different ways people interact with your SaaS. Then, you can figure out the most effective way to engage<\/a> them.<\/p>\n Each of these groups has a different perspective to offer. With user segmentation<\/a>, you can target your approach and encourage them to create friction logs themselves.<\/p>\n How does that work in practice?<\/p>\n It’s simple to identify and build out different segments based on multiple user behaviors with Userpilot<\/a>.<\/p>\n From there, you can trigger an in-app message asking them to participate. You might want to use a slideout, banner, or modal <\/a>depending on their whereabouts in the journey.<\/p>\n Given how valuable (and time-consuming for the user) creating friction logs can be, consider offering incentives to encourage them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you using a friction log to track and prioritize what to improve in your product? In this guide, our aim is to help savvy product managers understand what friction logs are, where you might use them, and how to create them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":12126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,214,289],"tags":[800,801,52,216,215,85,201],"class_list":["post-12124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product","category-product-management","category-saas","tag-friction-log","tag-friction-logs","tag-product-experience","tag-product-management","tag-product-manager","tag-saas","tag-user-experience"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat are the two high-level types of friction?<\/h2>\n
Function friction<\/h3>\n
Opportunity friction<\/h3>\n
Positive vs negative friction<\/h2>\n
Why should product managers use friction logs?<\/h2>\n
Improve product activation and drive growth<\/h3>\n
See the product from the user’s perspective<\/h3>\n
Identify and fix bugs in the product<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"Bug](\"https:\/\/blog-static.userpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/slack-bug-fixes-frictin-log-release_6e2c6ac9632ff6bb222571fd54107a1f_800.webp)
<\/picture>Share information across multiple teams<\/h3>\n
\n
Identify improvement opportunities across the entire user experience<\/h3>\n
How often should you do friction logs?<\/h2>\n
\n
Who is responsible for doing friction logs?<\/h2>\n
How to create friction logs<\/h2>\n
Friction logging step 1: Decide which part of the product you want to test<\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/blog-static.userpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Use-data-to-prioritize-your-decisions-with-Userpilot_76f33aa1b24f682d686f59dd19830a47_800.png)
<\/picture><\/figure>\nFriction logging step 2: Include details on the friction log template<\/h3>\n
Friction logging step 3: Set a color-coded system<\/h3>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/blog-static.userpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Image-of-color-coded-system-Userpilot_cb96c7acf10b63ac0207210394b0b6f1_800.png)
<\/picture><\/figure>\nFriction logging step 4: Do the first friction log yourself<\/h3>\n
Friction logging step 5: Use user behavioral segmentation to identify the best users<\/h3>\n
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![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/blog-static.userpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-of-Userpilot-user-segmentation__95bf23ce4ce5a59529b4568cc2b272c4_800.png)
<\/picture>![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/blog-static.userpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-of-Userpilot-slideout_d6ba241ae83a7583ddc900c121861fa0_800.png)
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