My Favorite Software Limits Me Well
When I think about the software I enjoy using and return to frequently, one of their commonalities is their great execution of limitations. Some examples:
140 characters. That one is a gimme.
I love the way HotelTonight constraints my choice to only 3 – 9 hotels in a given city (depending on density of the city). Even better than HotelTonight’s attractive pricing, the constrained choice helps me save time, which is more valuable than the $15/night in savings for me. It saves me the endless optimizing of a hotel aggregator website.
The Wirecutter – my favorite gadget review website – just lists the best of any given product in a category. “Want the best laptop? Buy this one.” Don’t show me a myriad of options goverened by a parametric search interface (yes, you CNet). Just show me the right one. I bought my TV based on The Wirecutter’s recommendation and it is one of the best purchases I have made in recent memory.
Uber and Hailo. There are no different car options… no prices to consider. It pre-loads your location with GPS, so there’s typically no need to fuss with that either. It’s just a big honking button that says “Pick me up!” All the choices are hidden away behind intelligent defaults. It’s wonderful.
And, don’t forget Top 8 friends (myspace) or just one photo upload per day (fotolog). Success from good limitations in design is not a new concept.
Sometimes even just two choices is one too many. I recall when we redesigned the homepage at Homestead (a website hosting and editing company – contemporary to Geocities and AngelFire) to give users the choice between either a lightweight web-based editing tool, or a heavyweight desktop software editing tool, most users just bounced and never returned. Our conversion rate plummeted back on giving a user a choice in how to proceed.
Back when I was playing Product Designer at Homestead in 2005, I often recited an expression defending my design choices that tightly constrained options: “When you give a user too many choices, many will choose nothing at all.”
Notes
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idancohen likes this
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kvnrvi said:
Do you think the 140 character limit is needed ? why not 256? Would help me RT and MT a lot more easily.
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kvnrvi likes this
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gbattle said:
one song upload on Tumblr…
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jonathanmarcus likes this
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lilyb likes this
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ntmoney likes this
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whitneymcn likes this
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thegongshow posted this
