Simplicity Rules

Whenever we interact with the world, we use an interface. Most shoes are easy to put on because the process of slipping feet into them is easy. Your typical shoe interface is simple and elegant, at least until you get to the laces.

My friends at Needmore Designs noticed a problem with the latest ActionScript, the language used to create Flash movies:

And until recently, it was appropriately simple: you just use the getURL command, and pass it a string exactly like you would in your web browser. Hard to improve on such simplicity and perfection, isn’t it?

Oh, but they have. Now you use the navigateToURL command… but you can’t just pass it the link… now you must first create a URLRequest object to pass it.

What Adobe must have seen as a technical fix was really an interface change. In the name of making something powerful, they removed a simple command that worked really well for most users.

There are tough decisions in determining any interface. Do you fix something you think is broken when many users have already learned it? There are trade-offs to making any change, even if you think it’s the right choice.

But in this case, Adobe and their users could have had it both ways. The getURL command could have put together its own call to the more complicated navigateToURL. Users could still have their old, simple way and their new, powerful method.

This post is the last of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies. Read more of this series.

Much like my camera buying experience, when faced with too much choice, people often choose nothing. Too many choices make us feel like we should be maximizers.

In the book, Schwartz wrote about a study that looked at jam tastings. They split the participants into two groups:

Some people were presented with six different samples on a table, while others saw twenty-four. They could taste as many as they wanted, and then were given a coupon for a $1 discount on any jam they purchased. The larger display of samples attracted more shoppers, but these individuals did no sample more different jams. Remarkably, shoppers who saw the larger display were less likely actually to buy jam than those who saw the smaller display. Much less likely.

People prefer a little pre-filtering. It’s why I have such a great experience at my local hardware store. Surprisingly, this finding remains true for smaller number of choices. In this next example, one good choice is shown to be better than two good choices:

You can get a popular Sony CD player for only $99, well below list price. Do you buy it, or do you continue to research other brands and models? Now imagine that the sign in the window offers both the $99 Sony and a $169 top-of-the-line Aiwa, also well below list price. Do you buy either of them, or do you postpone the decision and do more research?

When given only one choice, 2/3 of people go ahead and make the purchase. That means 1/3 choose to keep looking. When given two choices, an equal number of people choose each CD player, but nearly half decide to buy nothing. Here it is a little clearer, in a painful-to-implement Google chart:

This means that at a point that most people are perfectly happy to satisfice, they become overwhelmed when given more choices. As a chooser, it means being willing to “settle” when something is good enough.

As someone providing choices (to your customers, or on your website), it means doing a little bit of pre-filtering, and be willing to not have as many options, because the more we see, the less we like.

This bonus post is part of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies. Read more of this series.

There was so much to say about The Hot Chick, I missed the chance to show how nobody cares about status, as long as the other guy is doing worse than them.

People were asked to choose between earning $50,000 a year with others earning $25,000 and earning $100,000 a year with others earning $200,000. They were asked to choose between 12 years of education (high school) when others have 8, and 16 years of education (college) when others have 20. They were asked to choose between an IQ of 110 when the IQ of others is 90 and an IQ of 130 when the IQ of others is 150. In most cases, more than half of the respondents chose the options that gave them better relative position. Better to be a big fish, earning $50,000, in a small pond than a small fish, earning $100,000, in a big one.

Again, all that has changed is a simple frame of reference. A New Yorker cartoon of an employee talking to his boss, republished in the book, makes the point succinctly: “O.K., if you can’t see your way to giving me a pay raise, how about giving Parkerson a pay cut?”

This post is part of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies. Read more of this series.

We have all been disappointed by a movie that we had high hopes of liking. You’ve probably also given a review of a movie that went something like, “it was pretty good, but I expected it to suck.”

That’s pretty much the only way to explain why I liked The Hot Chick, a Rob Schneider vehicle that I can’t believe I saw in the theater. This is a movie whose top keywords at IMDb are Underwear, Slacker, and Gay Kiss.

Yet, I couldn’t help but say good things about it. That’s because I set the “zero point,” my frame for comparison, as the lowliest of bad comedies. Like the pessimist’s dilemma, the zero point can be altered by a small change in phrasing:

A sign at a gas station that says “Discount for Paying Cash” sets the zero point at the credit card price. A sign that says “Surcharge for Using Credit” sets the zero point at the cash price. Thought the difference between cash and credit may be the same at both gas stations, people will be annoyed at having to pay a surcharge and delighted at getting a discount

Sounds like a great excuse to plan for generosity.

Seth has a great example of the Pessimists Dilemma:

“I’m more and more convinced that the best hope for the eco movement is to tell a story of efficiency and growth and ingenuity. More is easy to sell. Less almost never is.”

Only phrase things negatively if you want someone to say no.

This post is part of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies. Read more of this series.

Most choices have trade-offs. Rarely is one option better in every way than another. How you think about what you pick can greatly effect the outcome.

The book has an example of a custody battle. The jury has a list of qualities of two parents, relating to income, health, and relationship with the child.

It’s pretty much a draw, but it turns out who gets chosen varies significantly based on how the question is asked.

Question 1: To which parent would you award sole custody of the child?
Answer 1: 64% choose Parent B.

Question 2: Which parent would you deny sole custody of the child?
Answer 2: only 55% choose Parent B.

Says Schwartz:

Difficult choices like this set people off on a chase for reasons to justify their decisions. In the first instance, they are looking for a reason to accept a parent. In the second instance, people are looking for reasons to reject a parent.

When we are looking for the good, it’s easy to spot. Of course, it can be easy to see the negatives, too. But then, if the pessimist is to rule out an option because of the negatives, he must also rule out its positives.

That’s what I call the pessimist’s dilemma. That’s when you realize the opportunities you’re passing up, and so starts the maximizing.

For yourself, your customers, and for simplicity’s sake, avoid the pessimist’s dilemma. I say keep things positive.

This post is part of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies. Read more of this series.

So, we’re in a society with almost infinite choice. Why is that so bad? Unfortunately, many of us have a tendency to need to investigate all possibilities. That can be especially tough with so many options. Those who succumb are attempting to maximize.

Maximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. Yet how can anyone truly know that any given option is absolutely the best possible? The only way to know is to check out all the alternatives.

The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. A satisficer has criteria and standards. She searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that point, she stops.

If this sounds like the incrementalist and the completionist, it’s very similar. The completionist wants it to be just right–he wants to investigate all the possibilities. The incrementalist is looking for is “good enough for now”–she is satisficing.

In the book, Barry Schwartz argues that maximizing too much makes us unhappy. I’ll show a few more examples of that later in this series.

Before you get down on yourself and feel even worse, it’s important to note that you are not one or the other. There are things about which you maximize and others where you satisfice. The trick is to acknowledge your weak points and find ways to be happier without investigating all the options.

What do you maximize? Have you found any solutions?

Here’s a no doubter: Digital cameras have revolutionized photography. It’s so much simpler than the old way, a time of limited quantity, no do-overs, and waiting for development–a time my nephews will never know.

This summer, when I upgraded cameras, I purchased a card that further simplifies my digital photography. Slipped into my memory slot, this little fella looks and acts exactly like an ordinary SD card. When I’m done with photos, I just take it out, fold it in half, and stick it in my USB port. No cables, no card readers. USB is built into the card.

It has greatly simplified taking pictures. It’s a joy. But I’m not going to use it anymore.

The Eye-Fi takes yet another step out of the process. It also looks exactly like a standard SD card. But it lives inside the camera, not intended to be removed.

Whenever the Eye-Fi is within Wi-Fi range, it uploads photos to one of several online services. Then my computer downloads them with a local utility when it has its own connection.

Forget about “no cables,” this means I won’t even have to think about it. My latest photos will always be available, and I won’t have to do a thing. If the trend in simplification continues, in the future my nephews will tell stories of when photography required pushing a button.

This post is part of a series about The Paradox of Choice, a book about why more is less. Leave a comment below and I may randomly pick you to win one of three autographed copies.

Whenever I go to huge hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowes, I’m overwhelmed. Since buying the new place, we’ve spent a lot of time between our house and the nearby local hardware store, Beaumont Hardware.

Don’t judge them by their website. It looks like a boring hardware store, but it’s a magical place. I’ve confirmed this with neighbors and friends. Finding what I need at Beaumont Hardware is an order of magnitude easier than the big stores.

This is because they offer me fewer choices. They have already found the best two or three options for an item, so I don’t have to consider the bad ones. Much like my camera search, too many choices overwhelm.

A preview of my week-long series on The Paradox of Choice:

• Are you a maximizer or satisficer?
• The pessimist’s dilemma
• Good? Compared to what?, plus a bonus post: Nobody Cares About Status
• The more I see, the less I like

You know how you run into useless parked domain sites as you’re clicking around the web? They have keyword links on the left side, a text header with the domain name, and absolutely no useful content. These sites all look alike, kind of like this:

But only one of those is a parked domain. The other is an actual site. Can you guess which is which?

The real site is Metro Mark Corp (the one of the left), the same company that was paying for Google Ads to nowhere two years ago.

Now, I’m no designer, but think a very basic requirement of any site is to not look like spam.