Choices: Less is More

Interaction Design December 27, 2007

How many ways can you eat a Reeses? How many ways can you turn off your computer? People like choices, but they don't like too many. I was reading a bit from Barry Schwartz's "Paradox of Choice" and was intrigued on the things he has to say regarding choices.

Decades of research have told us that freedom, autonomy, and choice are essential for psychological well being, and it seems only logical that if some choice is good, then more choice is better. Nonetheless, recent findings suggest that as the number of choices people face increases, a point is reached at which satisfaction and well-being go down--that choice stops being liberating and starts to become paralyzing.

It seems odd, yet the more choices you give your user, the more unhappy they are. People don't want to have to think when they navigate a website or use a software application. They want direction. If you give them too many, it's confusing.

Place a subject in a room with 10 doors all colored in different shades of blue. Then tell him to pick the light blue door. Compare this to the subject who has only two doors, one dark and one light. Their experiences are drastically different.

On the Web

Utilizing good navigation principles can help you give the user a more directed experience. Many sites out there have so many pages that they just link to every one of them from the homepage. It's overwhelming, confusing and it won't keep your users. Breaking down your navigation into smaller pieces and dividing it into a hierarchy of importance will drastically improve your user experience.

You may think that the user should have as many options as possible in order to best find what he/she is looking for - but as a designer, it's up to you to design how they accomplish their goals. That's part of the interaction design. You can always include a search bar to cover the extra bases.

In Software

If there are too many ways to do the same function, it's unnecessary and can be confusing as well. Along the same lines, if it takes too many clicks or menus to accomplish a simple task, it's even more confusing. I won't point out specifics, but in many cases, you have to go through a series of menus before finding the button that does what you want.

Sometimes this is okay because the direction through the menus makes sense. But if the functionality is something used often and it's still hidden under layers of menus, then the navigation hierarchy doesn't make much sense.

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Ever go into the supermarket wanting to buy cereal? It's a very different experience when you know what cereal you want versus just browsing. I've counted over 160 different varieties, not including the different versions of any particular cereal (i.e. Honey Nut Cheerios, regular Cheerios, etc.). Too many choices is daunting if you don't know what you're looking for. I want a flaky cereal that's kind of healthy. Okay...that limits it down to the top shelf. Oh wait, but there are some on the bottom shelf too.

We have too many options in our daily lives today. The world is such that we're convinced of the notion that "more things make us happy." But it's not always true. Sure, people would rather have some choice than no choice at all, but we want guided free will.

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