End the pain of deciding sooner

The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.

And as the decision time increases, the user experience suffers.

This law was first uncovered in the fifties, and since then has become a key tenet of effective web design. Ask any of the programmers you know.

Nobody wants to paralyze and frustrate their user. Kill all the pointless features and just give people what they need, for the love of god.

But this law also has profound applications outside of the world of computing. When the psychologist first discovered it, he never could have predicted that we’d be living in a culture of infinite choice where option anxiety has become the most common ailment of the modern world.

You think heart disease, cancer and diabetes are bad? Trying picking a television show to watch. There were five hundred new series that premiered last year alone. And every one of them is the best goddamn thing most of us has ever seen. Talk about the user experience suffering. Complexity is an understatement at this point.

Anyway, because of this mind boggling availability of choices, it’s important to take a step back and get perspective on the issue.

First of all, this is an amazing problem to have. We are incredibly lucky to even experience such a phenomenon in our lifetimes. In fact, my theory on why the paradox of choice gives people so much anxiety is because they don’t take time to appreciate what a gift it is.

Hell, there are entire countries that will literally crush you for making certain choices. And we complain about too many flavors of potato chips? Let’s not exaggerate this burden by forgetting how to have gratitude.

Here’s the second point. Since the amount of time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of amazing choices, and since there are an infinite amount of them, it’s time we learned how to end the pain of deciding sooner.

That way, we can actually enjoy what we choose.

Louie CK, the existential philosopher disguised as a comedian, writes about this idea in his award winning comedy show. His doctor famously gives him the advice:

Just pick a road and go down it, or don’t. As if to tell he man, look, every choice is a good one and every outcome is a gift worthy of joy and appreciation. Given how vulnerable human life is to disease and bad luck, be grateful for having the option at all.

Are you still going on about the costs and benefits of your options?

You’re not discerning, you’re not strategic, and you’re not a savvy consumer. You are just refusing to make a choice. And that means you have lost sight of the ungodly amount of awesomeness that surrounds you, every moment of every day.

Listen, the paradox of choice has reached epic proportions. Our user experience of life is already suffering of its own accord, so let’s not make things worse for ourselves.

Do your nervous system a favor and end the pain of deciding sooner. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you need more time, or do you need to decide?