Take Advantage of Human Nature, Reduce Your Choices.
An excellent read from Andy Rutledge:
Few things are as compelling or as fruitful as a rivalry. Any landscape, no matter how vibrant or contentious, is merely tepid without the conspicuous presence of two, and only two, powerful and clearly defined antagonists.
Thinking about all the decisions I’ve tried to make over the years (movies at the movie store, type of beer to drink, what kind of sub to buy, what movie to go see, where to walk the dog etc…) this totally makes sense. I have literally spent hours in stores trying to pick between like 5 possible items. Even deciding what to eat for dinner with my girlfriend is frequently a difficult decision.
Thinking now about my work, as much as I’d love to only present two possible designs for a website, I feel that a only two different designs might not represent the best options. I look at web design sometimes more like problem solving. What is the best way to display this information? What is the best method of navigation for this content? There is frequently more than two solutions. In fact, if I haven’t even thought about a thrid option, I probably haven’t thought long and hard enough. How can you reduce possibly hundreds of ideas into only two sets of choices for a client?
Maybe I should just try harder.