Outsourcing choice Matt 72 comments Latest by Des Traynor

Leona’s vs. The Hummus Place

The 37signals office used to be located next to Leona’s, an Italian restaurant. Every time we’d go there, we’d crack up over the length of the menu (PDF). It’s huuuuge: seven pages and over 2,500 words. The beast should come with an executive summary. Here’s just one sample spread:

On the other hand, here’s the menu at The Hummus Place in NYC. Three options and that’s it. Sure, you don’t get a vast array of wraps, sides, and pastas. But you don’t have to spend a century reading the thing either.

Less choice = less suffering

The problem with the Leona’s approach is choice has a cost. It’s one of the reasons why we always talk about less here: Endless options can actually produce genuine suffering. “The Paradox of Choice” (good summary at the New Yorker) talks about how options can actually be “de-motivating.” Offering shoppers samples of six items yields more sales than offering samples of 24, students who are offered six extra credit topics are more likely to write a paper than students who are offered 30, etc. In some cases, just one additional choice can produce outright analysis paralysis. People wind up frozen by indecision.

Interface choices

This concept applies to interfaces too. Here’s one way to do an event form:



(Click for full size)

Here’s a “less” way (from the calendar coming soon to Backpack):