Chapter 34. The Illusion of Choice
Regardless of what you are designing, it’s only a matter of time before you have to let your users choose their own adventure. Whether it’s a menu, a set of prices, or a list of products, UX affects that choice.
Many new designers think about user choices as a random event. The users could pick anything!
Well, sort of.
They can choose randomly, but they won’t. And they shouldn’t. Sometimes, it really doesn’t matter (to us) what the user chooses. But sometimes it is the difference between success and failure. Always give users the options they need, and make sure everything is easy to find, but—as a UX designer—you can also maximize your own goals, without sacrificing anything for the user.
Here are four good principles:
The Paradox of Choice
In theory, choosing nothing is always an option.
The more options you offer someone, the harder it is to choose. That’s called the Paradox of Choice. If the user can’t decide, they will leave. Providing lots of options might feel like “something for everyone,” but you’re actually giving every user a small aneurysm. Choosing carefully from three things is easy. Choosing carefully from 30 things is impossible.
What You See Is All There Is
Most people will only consider the choices that they are offered, even if other possibilities exist. On the TV show The Bachelor, you never hear him say, “The second rose goes to... the camera guy, Bruce.”
Bruce might deserve that rose, but he’s not an option. If The Bachelor could still ...
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