Thursday, May 24, 2007
Narrowing Down - Simplicity Revisited
In the May 28th edition of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki (Wisdom of Crowds), discusses feature creep and individuals inability to judge what will make them happy in the future (Stumbling Upon Happiness? bought it but haven't read it yet, maybe Paradox of Choice?). In short, people buy whatever has the most features, but are then displeased when they realize that they don't know how to use it, get confused, or discover that they don't need all those features. A large percentage of returned merchandise is due to the user's inability to figure the thing out.
So, we want simplicity but we think we want as many features as possible. Just like a teenager thinks they want as many options open as possible and any restriction is something to be fought against. Just like me wanting to leave every decision undecided as long as possible because it gives me more options down the road. In essence, this desire to grab hold of everything leads to paralysis, an inability to act. If I have friends coming over to watch a movie, I have to pick out three choices ahead of time. I know that about my friends. Otherwise we will never decide on a movie and if we do, a large number will be unhappy with it. Narrowing down to the reasonable choices is sort of a preliminary decision making art that I think we've lost. We reserve decision making, any portion of it, for the last moment possible. Is it that we really are so bad at knowing what we want or is it that we just don't want to be responsible for any bad decision? We keep hoping that more information will come along that will make the decision easier. How does narrowing down our choices or lack of responsibility relate to our believing that we'll use more features than we really will? Well isn't the reason that we choose the one with the most features because we think it would be a bad decision to not choose more for the same or close to the same amount? Could part of it be that making a decision to buy less shows responsibility while making a decision to purchase the most options available shows none because no one can blame us for choosing the most options available. There is no personal responsibility in the decision to do so. We are not making a decision when we go with the gift card. We're not giving more options to the purchaser, what we're really doing is not taking responsibility (don't be offended, I buy gift cards). Every decision that we make based on the default "more is better" is simply of shift of responsibility from ourselves to society. It's not a decision that we own. It's a decision that the supposed collective intelligence of everyone else has determined to be the right one. We're not liable. Narrowing down creates decision ownership. Throwing out creates ownership. Limiting creates ownership. Problem is that it's ownership of something nobody seems to want to own.
So, we want simplicity but we think we want as many features as possible. Just like a teenager thinks they want as many options open as possible and any restriction is something to be fought against. Just like me wanting to leave every decision undecided as long as possible because it gives me more options down the road. In essence, this desire to grab hold of everything leads to paralysis, an inability to act. If I have friends coming over to watch a movie, I have to pick out three choices ahead of time. I know that about my friends. Otherwise we will never decide on a movie and if we do, a large number will be unhappy with it. Narrowing down to the reasonable choices is sort of a preliminary decision making art that I think we've lost. We reserve decision making, any portion of it, for the last moment possible. Is it that we really are so bad at knowing what we want or is it that we just don't want to be responsible for any bad decision? We keep hoping that more information will come along that will make the decision easier. How does narrowing down our choices or lack of responsibility relate to our believing that we'll use more features than we really will? Well isn't the reason that we choose the one with the most features because we think it would be a bad decision to not choose more for the same or close to the same amount? Could part of it be that making a decision to buy less shows responsibility while making a decision to purchase the most options available shows none because no one can blame us for choosing the most options available. There is no personal responsibility in the decision to do so. We are not making a decision when we go with the gift card. We're not giving more options to the purchaser, what we're really doing is not taking responsibility (don't be offended, I buy gift cards). Every decision that we make based on the default "more is better" is simply of shift of responsibility from ourselves to society. It's not a decision that we own. It's a decision that the supposed collective intelligence of everyone else has determined to be the right one. We're not liable. Narrowing down creates decision ownership. Throwing out creates ownership. Limiting creates ownership. Problem is that it's ownership of something nobody seems to want to own.
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