When browsing through the pricing plans of Netflix or Dropbox, you may notice that there are only three or four options provided. If the user experience is the key, why not let users get even more choices or even customized plans? After all, a higher number of choices could theoretically satisfy a higher number of customers, right?
It turns out, giving a higher number of choices to the users actually leads to higher time in making the choice to buy. This is also known as Hick’s law or the choice overload effect. When bombarded with too many choices, users can get the anxiety to make the right choice and it also opens up further avenues for the users to do over-analysis. As a result, it gives them more time to just exit your site.
Prevalence in common apps
The evidence of this law is quite widespread. Procter & Gamble experienced a 10% increase in sales when they reduced their shampoo varieties from 26 down to 15. On Netflix’s pricing page as well you see only three types of plans. Since the product is more or less the same across the plans, providing more options might confuse the users and hence it is better to keep just three or four options.
Similar principles can be observed with dropbox. Also notice how the plans are categorized as basic, plus, and family to give users a verbal cue about what they are purchasing.
The following practices can be inferred from the above discussion:
- Limit the alternatives provided to the customers
- Provide meaningful categorization of options
- Introduce complexity gradually, and not all at once
Although Hick’s law is quite evident, there are also examples to the contrary. For example, in food ordering apps you’ll most likely see multiple restaurants with multiple food ordering options. In thing case, however, the multiple options available are actually desirable.
On the pricing page of Adobe creative cloud as well you can observe multiple options being offered as almost all of those options are independent of each other, and the purchase of one would not affect the other. If the user wants multiple apps, they can go for a combination subscription.
Depending on what message you want to send to your users you can limit the number of options you provide to your users. If variety is your strength, like adobe, then by all means go for it. However, if you offer 10 plans starting from $10 going up to $100, chances are that the higher number of options might confuse the users.
If you want to read more about related topics, check out our post on the serial position effect here!
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