Every organization has a communication problem they think is small. A tiny annoyance. A glitch. Something that “only happens sometimes.” But communication problems rarely start big. They start as little frictions that pile up until someone finally says, “Why is this so hard?”
My favorite simple example came from a Starbucks marketing email. I opened it in dark mode on my phone, and the text simply vanished. Not faded. Not low contrast. Gone. The background swallowed the message like it was trying to hide evidence.
And here’s the thing: I don’t have a vision disability. I couldn’t read it because the design didn’t survive real‑world conditions. Desktop? Fine. Mobile? Cue crime scene. And this isn’t just about contrast. When your email collapses under normal use, it chips away at brand trust and kills conversions before your audience even has a chance to engage.
That’s communication friction. It’s not dramatic. It’s not loud. It’s not even interesting at first glance. But it’s everywhere, and it’s quietly eating your credibility alive. Most leaders never see it. Their audience feels it every day.
Where communication breaks down in the workflow
Companies love to treat communication problems as copy problems. “We need clearer messaging.” “We need a better subject line.” “We need a stronger call to action.”
But the truth is far less glamorous: communication usually breaks long before the message ever reaches a human being. It’s like the message tripped over your workflow, face‑planted, and never made it to the meeting.
It breaks in the workflow. It breaks when …
- … a platform buries your text under its own interface
- … your survey assumes everyone has the same time, energy, and tech access
- … your design choices increase anxiety instead of usability
- … your internal processes rely on “someone remembering”
The Instagram‑style video format that many platforms use is a perfect example. Creators are told to add hooks, text, graphics, and visual elements. Meanwhile, the platform slaps play buttons, profile bubbles, and post previews right on top of the content. Even when I place text in the so‑called safe zone, something still overlaps. If I move it up, it covers my face. If I move it down, the interface covers it. It’s like playing layout Tetris with a platform that keeps changing the rules.
And this isn’t about video. It’s about the risk you take when your communication depends on a platform that can undermine your message at any moment.
This isn’t a creator problem. It’s a system problem. And system problems don’t get fixed by telling people to “try harder.”
Design assumptions reveal who you’re actually serving
Recently, I ran into three long surveys that all managed to create friction in different ways. Two of them came from disability organizations and expected detailed input with little to no compensation. One offered a raffle for a gift card and the other offered nothing at all. The third survey was not from a disability organization, but it required a phone call as the only way to participate, which is its own form of exclusion.
As I wrote in one of my posts, “Enter to win isn’t compensation. It’s a shrug in gift card form.” But the real issue is not the incentive. It is the assumption that people have unlimited time, energy, and access.
When your data collection process filters out the very people you claim to serve or unintentionally excludes entire groups through a single communication channel, you don’t just end up with bad data. You end up with a dataset so skewed it should probably come with a warning label.
This is about design assumptions. Assumptions like believing people have unlimited time, unlimited energy, unlimited patience, and unlimited cognitive bandwidth. Spoiler: they don’t. As I said in a keynote, As I said in a keynote, convenient data isn’t easy data. It’s just data that took the path of least resistance and left half your audience behind.
Unpaid labor leads to incomplete insight. The people who finish those surveys are the ones who have the time and energy to push through. That is not representative. That is survivorship bias dressed up as data. And it is a perfect example of communication friction because the system itself creates the barrier.
Design choices shape how people feel
Not all friction is about readability. Some of it is about how design choices make people feel.
Take two‑factor authentication apps. They all do the same thing: generate a code that refreshes every 30 seconds. But the design choices? Wildly different. Google Authenticator uses a pie graphic that turns red and blinks in the final seconds. No countdown. Just vibes. And those vibes are “Warning! Warning! You’re about to fail.”
Microsoft Authenticator, on the other hand, shows a circle and a numeric countdown. No blinking. No color shift. Just information. Same function. Very different emotional impact. And this isn’t really about timers. It’s about emotional accessibility and whether your design choices help people stay engaged or quietly push them away.
Same function. Very different emotional impact.
I don’t love timers. But I accept them in authenticators. What I don’t accept is a design that cranks up anxiety for no reason. Communication isn’t just what you say. It’s how your systems make people feel while they’re trying to do the thing you asked them to do. If design choices quietly stress people out, that’s friction too.
People don’t get stressed because they’re bad at technology. They get stressed because the design makes simple tasks feel like an obstacle course. No one opens an app thinking, “I hope this ruins my afternoon,” but some designs give it their best shot.
Respect shows up in systems, not statements
One of my favorite lines from my own work is this: “Respect in five words: Let me know your preference.” Because assuming access helps no one. Asking shows respect. And it shows you’re listening.
But a lot of organizations treat respect like a costume. They put it on for special occasions. Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD). A big announcement. A keynote. Then, when it comes to actual decision‑making, disabled people are left out of leadership roles, out of strategy conversations, and out of the rooms where systems are designed.
I’ve seen committees about issues that affect customers, including people with disabilities. Yet the only people chosen were leaders of nonprofits serving disabled communities. No one with lived experience. That’s not inclusion. It’s optics. And it’s not really about committees. It’s about structural exclusion baked into decision‑making.
Meanwhile, I’ve run a successful business for 20 years. Not by resting on my laurels, but by working hard. I’ve held many marketing, communications, and digital roles. It’s more than enough experience for a director role. No one asked. When organizations do invite disabled people into leadership or officer roles, everything changes. It’s not because we sprinkle disability magic on things, but because we see friction others don’t. We’ve lived it.
Performative respect is saying the right words. Operational respect is building the systems that back those words up. One is a statement. The other is whether your workflow treats people like humans instead of plot twists.
This is why I talk so much about systems. You can’t “inspire” your way into inclusion. You must build it into how you operate.
Fix the workflow to fix the communication
Here’s the part most companies miss: you don’t solve communication friction by rewriting the message. You solve it by redesigning the workflow that produces the message.
- That means testing content in real‑world conditions, not ideal ones
- Building checks into the process, not relying on memory
- Designing for variation, not the imaginary default user
- Creating systems that catch issues before your audience does
- Treating inclusion as infrastructure, not a special project
I noticed some workouts were going out without captions. Instead of saying “this is broken,” I said, “Here’s the fix. Add a workflow step to check captions before publishing.” One week later, they replied that they’d added the step.
That’s the power of process. Not inspiration. Not intention. Process.
Communication breakdowns erode trust quietly
Communication friction doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t file a ticket. It doesn’t send a complaint. It just disappears, and your audience goes with it. People stop engaging. They stop reading. They stop trusting. They stop believing you value their time.
By the time you notice, the damage is already done.
The good news is that friction is fixable. But only if you’re willing to look at the systems behind the message, not just the message itself.
The bottom line: systems drive communication
If your communication looks great on the deck but falls apart in the wild, you don’t have a messaging problem. You have a workflow problem.
If your audience keeps getting confused, frustrated, or quietly disengaging, you don’t have a content problem. You have a systems problem.
And if your organization says it values inclusion but your processes keep creating friction, you don’t have a values problem. You have an operational one.
- Fix the workflow and communication improves
- Fix the communication and the trust returns
- Fix the trust and everything else gets easier
That’s the real work. And it’s work worth doing.