Choice Overload
More options can reduce satisfaction and completion, but the effect is much less reliable than the popular version suggests.
Definition
The proposition that increasing the number of options can decrease the likelihood of choosing at all, and reduce satisfaction with the choice made. Popularised by Iyengar and Lepper's 2000 supermarket jam study.
Mixed evidence. Real research exists, but findings conflict, effect sizes are small, or the jump from the lab to interface design is contested.
On this plate
Reach for this when
- Designing catalogue, plan or configuration choices.
- Users abandon at a selection step.
- Deciding whether to reduce or restructure a set of options.
- A catalogue or plan list is large and the options are hard to compare against each other.
Common mistakes
- Quoting the jam study as settled science.
- Removing options instead of adding structure.
- Ignoring that expert users in familiar domains show little of the effect.
Conditions where the effect does appear
- The chooser has no clear preference going in.
- Options are hard to compare on a common dimension.
- The decision feels consequential or hard to reverse.
- There is time pressure.
- There is no structure: no categories, no filtering, no sorting, no default.
The practical conclusion
The design response is rarely 'offer fewer things'. It is to make a large set navigable: categorise it, allow filtering and sorting, provide comparison, and recommend a default for people without a strong preference.
A catalogue of ten thousand products with good faceted search does not overload anyone. Twelve products in an unsorted list with no descriptions can.
Do
- Add structure before removing options.
- Provide a recommended default for the undecided.
- Make options comparable on the attributes that matter.
- Offer good filtering and sorting for large sets.
Do not
- Cut inventory or capability on the strength of the jam study.
- Present many options with no way to narrow them.
- Assume the effect applies to expert users choosing in a familiar domain.
When more options are fine, and when they are not
Do
- Add options freely when they are easy to compare on one attribute, such as price.
- Provide a recommended choice for people with no basis to choose.
- Support filtering and sorting, which reduces the comparison rather than the catalogue.
- Order by what most people pick, when that is honest.
Do not
- Add options that differ on six incommensurable dimensions.
- Remove options from a catalogue because a famous jam study suggested it would sell more.
- Present three plans with no guidance about who each is for.
In practice
- i.
Faceted catalogue navigation
EcommerceLarge retailers show enormous catalogues without overload because filtering, sorting and comparison do the narrowing. The size of the set is not the problem; the absence of structure is.
- ii.
Plan selection with a recommendation
SaaS pricingMarking one tier as recommended, with a one-line reason, measurably increases selection speed without removing any option.
- iii.
Twelve plans, no basis to choose
Where it bitesA pricing page with twelve tiers differing on five attributes at once produced long sessions and few conversions. The same twelve, filtered by team size first, converted. The number of options never changed.
Local chart
PSY·002 · Region I · Grid A1
This entry and the entries it is stated to connect with. Each line is labelled with what the connection means.
Sources
Where a source establishes something narrower than the popular reading of it, the note says so.
- [1]
When choice is demotivating: can one desire too much of a good thing?
S. S. Iyengar and M. R. Lepper, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000
The jam study, which is the origin of the popular claim and a narrower finding than the claim.
- [2]
Can there ever be too many options? A meta-analytic review of choice overload
B. Scheibehenne, R. Greifeneder and P. M. Todd, Journal of Consumer Research, 2010
Found a mean effect size near zero across fifty experiments, with the effect appearing under specific conditions rather than generally.
Continue from here
Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.
Applies when you are designing
Explains
The mechanism underneath these entries.
- Hick's LawLAW·001 · Law
Hick's Law measures decision time. Choice overload describes what happens when the decision is abandoned instead.
- Progressive DisclosurePRIN·003 · Principle
Applied through
Where this shows up as a concrete interface decision.
- ComparisonPAT·006 · Pattern
- FilteringPAT·004 · Pattern
- SortingPAT·005 · Pattern
Check your work
Review passes that test whether this was done properly.
- Ecommerce ChecklistCHK·006 · Checklist
Related concept
Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.
- Anchoring BiasBIAS·001 · Cognitive bias
- Decoy EffectBIAS·012 · Cognitive bias
- Default EffectBIAS·004 · Cognitive bias
- Decision FatiguePSY·010 · Psychology