Hick’s Law (also known as the Hick-Hyman Law) states that “the larger the number of choices a person is presented with, the longer the person will take to reach a decision”. Named after psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman, Hick’s Law finds frequent application in User Experience (UX) design.
Why Should I be bothered about this law as a designer?
As a designer, one needs to make choices — important ones! before presenting users with choices and this is where Hick’s Law comes in handy.
From the graph above, we can deduce that, the more choices you throw at your user, the more the time they need to make a decision. This also means, you lose your users somewhere in the middle of the journey or you overload them irrelevant information to a point of ‘No-Return’.
However, sometimes; it is impossible to not present too many options to your user.
But even in this case, we as designers need to simplify the user’s choices by grouping things that have relation and or remove things that are not very important to the decision making process.
Real-time examples or Hicks Law
If you look at the remote below, this is a classic remote with buttons for almost everything imaginable. This leads to cognitive overload for users and sometimes excessive frustration making them feel ‘Technologically Challenged’. Meaning, they are not able to decide the right action and they have trouble doing what they want.
But if we look at the next image, it is quite obvious that this is a simplified remote with lesser buttons. Lesser the number of choices, lesser is the cognitive overload; meaning… User Experience Triumphs!
So, to Conclude
Always remember that showing too many options is not bad. But, ensure that the right amount is shown at the right place. You have approx… 10 seconds to appeal, impress and make an impact.
Try to reduce the use’s cognitive overload and make the experience worth it.
