The other day I watched Professor Barry Schwartz’s Google lecture on “The Paradox of Choice”. The idea, I think, is important and somewhat intuitive: that too much choice can be overwhelming. It can lead to an unwillingness to make any choice at all, or to poor decision-making based on the wrong characteristics. (Watch the video for an in-depth explanation.) This is just my attempt to summarize part of what he said, which I found particularly interesting.

For designers, there seem to be two things we can do to help people deal with overwhelming choices (and/or manipulate them to make the choices we want, depending on your point of view). There are two situations: the situation where a default exists and the user can get away with taking no action, and the situation where no default exists and the user must make a choice.

For the first situation, he gives the example of organ donorship on your driver’s license. A default exists: no organ donorship. The user can get away without making a choice, and most of the time, s/he does.

This situation is fairly easy to deal with for designers; simply make the default the “right” choice, and it will be selected most of the time. Never require someone to take extra action to make the “right” choice, if possible. (Except, of course, where this runs up against legal, moral, or ethical considerations.) An example of this is opt-out, rather than opt-in, organ donorship in Europe, where the rates of organ donorship are much higher. Another example is default enrollment in 401(k) plans, which has recently experienced a huge burst of popularity.

The other situation, in which no default exists and users must make a choice, is also subject to simplification (and/or manipulation). Just highlight or prominently feature a much smaller group of choices, and many users will be driven to choose from that set, simply to reduce the cognitive cost of dealing with all those other options.

Schwartz gives the example of the NYC diners, with 50-page menus and the 5 “Daily Specials” that never change (and are, coincidentally, the most expensive items on the menu). The Daily Specials are by far the most popular items. (You don’t even have to open the menu to see them!) This way, if you have something specific in mind, you can still get it, but the majority of people who don’t will have an easy way to make a choice from a narrow set of options.

So there we have it. Two situations, default and no-default, and a way to drive user behaviour in each.

the essence of good relationship:
we take turns.

…Oh yeah, that I need to learn how to interrupt people.

Seriously, I’ve come to realize that there’s a major cultural difference in how different regions of the country view interrupting. Where I was raised, in the South and Midwest, interrupting is considered very rude; if you interrupt somebody while they’re speaking, the polite thing to do is to apologize and allow them to continue and finish their thought before you start on yours. And this is what I automatically, habitually do; if I interrupt someone while they’re speaking, I automatically stop and allow them to continue.

Here in the Northeast, on the other hand, interrupting seems to be an accepted social behavior. It took me a while of subconsciously feeling trampled-upon to realize this, I think. From what I’ve observed, especially at work, interrupting is seen as not only accepted but actually a vital part of important, creative, passionate conversation. (And also of the day-to-day workplace bitching, of course.) And I definitely want to be a part of important, creative, passionate conversation.

So I’m not quite sure how to go about this, but it seems I need to unlearn me some manners.

(Okay, okay, so it’s a day late.)

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

- Rumi
(Coleman Barks translation)

(This is my participation for the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading. I wasn’t feeling too creative today, so I decided to share a classic from Rumi instead.)

Edit: Apparently 2007 has also been declared International Rumi Year by UNESCO. So there ya go.