I think that's making assumptions about user attention that aren't valid. The user is not looking for all ways to do something; they are looking for the first w

I think that's making assumptions about user attention that aren't valid. The user is not looking for all ways to do something; they are looking for the first way that satisfies their intention. Specifically in the case of the add playlist example given on the article, having it both at the bottom of the playlist list and the header of the playlist section does not detract from either one, but just satisfy different user journeys to get there. I think you're certainly right when the UI gets crowded -- the MS Office ribbon comes to mind; too many buttons to do formatting including dropdowns that do the same thing as other buttons makes it hard to find related functionality -- "why can I bold and italic here, but not strikethrough here?" because strikethrough was relegated to a submenu somewhere.