Building Without Barriers

Every click is a barrier. Every form field is a barrier. Every decision you force on your user is a barrier between them and what they want to accomplish.

The Barrier Audit

When we started building our products, we did something unusual: we counted barriers. Not features, not capabilities—barriers.

For every user flow, we asked: how many decisions does the user need to make? How many clicks? How many times do they need to think about the tool instead of their work?

The results were sobering. Our initial prototype of Storybookly had 47 barriers between opening the app and starting to write. Forty-seven moments where the user had to think about the interface instead of their story.

The Five Types of Barriers

1. Decision Barriers

"What should I do next?" If a user has to ask this question, you've created a decision barrier. The path forward should be obvious, not a puzzle to solve.

We removed decision barriers by making the default action always the most likely next step. In Storybookly, when you finish a paragraph, the cursor is already positioned for the next one. No decision needed.

2. Cognitive Barriers

These are the moments where users need to remember something, calculate something, or translate between the interface's mental model and their own.

Example: asking users to choose between "RGB" and "HEX" color formats. Most users don't think in either—they think in "that shade of blue I like." We removed this barrier by showing colors visually and handling the technical format behind the scenes.

3. Physical Barriers

Every extra click, every scroll, every movement of the mouse is a physical barrier. They seem small, but they accumulate.

We obsessed over keyboard shortcuts, not as power-user features, but as barrier removal. In Storybookly, common actions are one keystroke away. Not because we're targeting power users, but because everyone benefits from less friction.

4. Temporal Barriers

Waiting is a barrier. Loading screens, processing delays, "please wait" messages—they all break flow and create opportunities for distraction.

We optimized aggressively. Storybookly's AI suggestions appear in under 200ms. That's not fast enough to be imperceptible, but it's fast enough that users don't context-switch while waiting.

5. Emotional Barriers

Fear of making mistakes. Anxiety about losing work. Uncertainty about whether an action worked. These emotional barriers are often invisible but incredibly powerful.

We removed them through aggressive auto-saving, clear undo capabilities, and gentle confirmations. Users should feel safe to experiment, to try things, to make mistakes.

The Barrier Removal Process

Here's how we systematically removed barriers from Storybookly:

Step 1: Map the Journey

We created detailed user journey maps for every major task. Not the happy path—the real path, with all its detours and confusion.

Step 2: Count Everything

Every decision point, every click, every moment of uncertainty got counted and categorized. This gave us a baseline: 47 barriers for the "start writing" flow.

Step 3: Challenge Each Barrier

For each barrier, we asked: "Is this absolutely necessary?" Not "Is this useful?" or "Do some users want this?" but "Is it necessary?"

If the answer was no, we removed it. If the answer was "maybe," we removed it and waited to see if anyone complained. Most of the time, they didn't.

Step 4: Combine What Remains

For the barriers we couldn't remove, we tried to combine them. Instead of three separate decisions, could we make it one? Instead of two clicks, could we make it one?

Step 5: Make It Invisible

For barriers we couldn't remove or combine, we tried to make them invisible. Smart defaults, predictive behavior, learning from user patterns—anything to reduce the conscious thought required.

The Results

After our barrier removal process, Storybookly went from 47 barriers to 3:

1. Opening the app (unavoidable)
2. Choosing to start a new story or continue an existing one (necessary decision)
3. Starting to type (the actual work)

That's it. Everything else happens automatically, invisibly, without requiring user attention.

What We Learned

Users Don't Miss Features

We removed dozens of features during barrier removal. Configuration options, customization settings, advanced modes. Users didn't miss them. In fact, satisfaction scores went up.

Turns out, most "features" are just barriers in disguise.

Speed Matters More Than We Thought

We knew speed was important. We didn't realize how important. A 100ms delay in AI suggestions led to a measurable drop in engagement. Users didn't consciously notice the delay, but they felt it.

Defaults Are Product Decisions

Every default setting is a product decision. "Let users configure it" is often a cop-out. We should make the hard decision about what the right default is, not push that decision onto users.

Barriers Compound

One barrier isn't bad. Two barriers are annoying. Five barriers are frustrating. Ten barriers mean users give up.

Barriers don't add linearly—they multiply. Removing one barrier often makes the remaining barriers feel lighter.

The Ongoing Process

Barrier removal isn't a one-time project. It's a continuous practice. Every new feature we add, we ask: "How many barriers does this create? Can we remove more barriers than we're adding?"

Sometimes the answer is no, and we don't ship the feature. Better to have fewer features that work effortlessly than many features that create friction.

This is our product philosophy at Akatan. Build without barriers. Remove friction relentlessly. Make the interface invisible so the work can shine.

When users tell us "I just started writing and forgot about the app," we know we've succeeded. The tool disappeared, and the work remained. That's building without barriers.