4 ms·

>So far we’ve been adding price points with more and more success, so where does it stop? It stops at three. Adding too many is just going to cause confusion.

by jere 14y ago

>So far we’ve been adding price points with more and more success, so where does it stop? It stops at three. Adding too many is just going to cause confusion. That's funny. As soon as I saw this, I knew I was going to ask about the Jam study... which after reading further was already mentioned. Three seems to the magic number. For a project where users are presented with several options (unrelated to price) I had already made the decision to use three. But is there any objective reason three works better than say four? All I have is a gut feeling right now.

czr80 14y ago
I think it's a result of how quickly the number of comparisons increase. If I have 3 options, A, B and C I need to make 3 comparisons. A vs B, A vs C, B vs C. If I have 4 options I need to make 6, for 5 options, 10 comparisons and so on. If we assume that people can hold about 7 +/- 2 items in short term memory, you can see why the decision process becomes mentally tiring after 3 or at most 4 items.
- nathanbarry 14y ago
  I'm going to start using this to explain multiple packages from now on. Thank you very much.
graue 14y ago
And yet, that's linked to an article[1] that basically discredits the Jam Study, showing more choices don't really make a difference either way. 1. http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-cho...
- jere 14y ago
  Derp. I read the Paradox of Choice, which featured the Jam Study and quite a bit of other evidence against excessive choice. Didn't even think I needed to click on that link though. The last part makes a good point though: >It is of course important to make a distinction between choice and complexity. One reason behind the smart nudge of having new employees at a company be automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan is that the stack of paperwork and the large, complex set of options will turn some employees off from joining if left to their own devices. But asking someone who knows nothing about investing to suddenly think about asset allocation, to choose between fixed-income and equity products, between value and growth funds, etc., is a lot more complex than asking her to choose between strawberry jam and marmalade. So even if jam studies of the future prove inconclusive, it still seems wise to streamline choices whose complexity might otherwise hamper a good outcome.
gojomo 14y ago
Interestingly, there are even information-theoretic reasons to prefer 3-way branching representations, as explained in this article about "Base 3": http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,cont... Base 3, on the other hand, does have a genuine mathematical distinction in its favor. By one plausible measure, it is the most efficient of all integer bases; it offers the most economical way of representing numbers. (Culturally, I think any reduction to 2 choices calls to mind simplistic patterns of 'only 2 directions'/1-axis/1-line, or 'good'/'evil'. You expect one option to dominate. As soon as you reach 3 choices, people recognize that evaluation may require 2 or more dimensions of balancing, using curved preference functions and more thought.)

by jere 14y ago

czr80 14y ago

I think it's a result of how quickly the number of comparisons increase. If I have 3 options, A, B and C I need to make 3 comparisons. A vs B, A vs C, B vs C. If I have 4 options I need to make 6, for 5 options, 10 comparisons and so on. If we assume that people can hold about 7 +/- 2 items in short term memory, you can see why the decision process becomes mentally tiring after 3 or at most 4 items.

nathanbarry 14y ago
I'm going to start using this to explain multiple packages from now on. Thank you very much.

graue 14y ago

And yet, that's linked to an article[1] that basically discredits the Jam Study, showing more choices don't really make a difference either way. 1. http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-cho...

jere 14y ago
Derp. I read the Paradox of Choice, which featured the Jam Study and quite a bit of other evidence against excessive choice. Didn't even think I needed to click on that link though. The last part makes a good point though: >It is of course important to make a distinction between choice and complexity. One reason behind the smart nudge of having new employees at a company be automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan is that the stack of paperwork and the large, complex set of options will turn some employees off from joining if left to their own devices. But asking someone who knows nothing about investing to suddenly think about asset allocation, to choose between fixed-income and equity products, between value and growth funds, etc., is a lot more complex than asking her to choose between strawberry jam and marmalade. So even if jam studies of the future prove inconclusive, it still seems wise to streamline choices whose complexity might otherwise hamper a good outcome.

gojomo 14y ago

Interestingly, there are even information-theoretic reasons to prefer 3-way branching representations, as explained in this article about "Base 3": http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,cont... Base 3, on the other hand, does have a genuine mathematical distinction in its favor. By one plausible measure, it is the most efficient of all integer bases; it offers the most economical way of representing numbers. (Culturally, I think any reduction to 2 choices calls to mind simplistic patterns of 'only 2 directions'/1-axis/1-line, or 'good'/'evil'. You expect one option to dominate. As soon as you reach 3 choices, people recognize that evaluation may require 2 or more dimensions of balancing, using curved preference functions and more thought.)