Decision fatigue and user experience
Give them the power of choice (but not too much)…
Did you ever went to buy a basic t-shirt and there are like 10 different colors, you thought “Well, I can buy the black one, but maybe it will be too hot… So maybe this navy one… Or this green? No, definitely the grey…” And you ended up buying a pair of socks, instead…
Or did you ever stayed on Netflix for minutes just staring at the screen or passing by all the infinity of possibilities of movies and series? And after all, finishing by watching for the 67º time another Friends episode?
Nowadays we have so much information that we can consume in minutes, seconds, and also we have to decide so many things during our day, which clothes to wear, which way to go to work, which food we are gonna eat, and of course, all the decisions we make at school, at work etc. This process is exhausting cognitively and after some time our decision-making ability is reduced. That’s the Decision Fatigue
We have a “willpower limit”, we can make a lot of decisions, but when we have so many options, so many possibilities, sometimes we can messing things up like buying things impulsively, reducing the ability to trade-off or even avoiding making a decision.
The paradox of choice: the more options we’re given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose, because we’re aware of all the other options we’re potentially forfeiting. — Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
So, what all this have to do with User Experience and User Interface? Remember the Netflix example? Yep, that’s the point. When we give so many possibilities and “freedom” to the user, perhaps he will be ending up feeling confused, frustrated or even demotivated.
I gave here the Netflix example to be more visual. But, on user interfaces sometimes we want to offer all that the user (thinks he) wants and in the end, we can lose him because he doesn’t know what to do, which path to follow.
Imagine that behavior on a product, e-commerce page? It will be catastrophic once you could lose your sale. For example, if your product has a lot of price options, highlight some of them (the most popular) and the others give a little less visual weight. On the forms, if it is possible, divide it into parts also to not to give to your user the TL;DR sensation.
Most of the time, our user doesn’t want to think what to do. We like the immediate. Even if we like the sensation of the power of choice, we don’t like to choose.
In reality, though, most of the time we don’t choose the best option – we choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing. – Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
As UX / UI designer we should help and guide out user so they don’t get tired or frustrated with our app or website. Also because the user has the tendency of thinks he is the one doing things wrong and not knowing what to choose instead of thinking that probably the product has some interface “problems”. Remembering that each product is a different case, so, you have to balance the content knowing the context and the path that the user will follow.
Finally, give the user the power to choose, but not so much. So he can feel that he has control and will feel more relief and satisfied with the decision-making process and will be happier at the end of the experience.
