Great read from 52 Weeks of UX. Just made a note to keep coming back to this post…kinda worried that the new TenthRow UI is a little too complex at the moment, but it will soon be time to let our users tell us that…
Here’s the main point of the article (but read the whole thing – it’s short):
Hick’s Law is a design principle that states: “The time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases.”
Translation: more choices = more anxiety. Less choices = more control. At least in the mind of the user.
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Hicks law doesn’t apply to everything, just as simply removing some choices doesn’t always mean you have made it easier on the user. The point is to be mindful of whether or not your design puts the control in the hands of the user or in the complexity of the interface.