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PREVIOUS PAGE • SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER • CLIENT LOGIN How little is too much?More isn't always better. Consider water. Without it, you'll die; but if you find yourself in too much of it, you're likely to drown. Designers will tell you that too much bold text or italic text is worse than none at all. Emphasize everything and you emphasize nothing. On the Web, too much information is daunting. Anyone who has ever used a search engine to ask a general question knows the sinking feeling that comes from seeing the search engine's response: 37,257 pages found.
That's why smart restaurant owners categorize their menus (see figure 2). Patrons look over the categories and rule out a few ("Not in the mood for seafood today. Don't want vegetarian or noodles. Hmmm. That leaves poultry and beef.") and then zero in on the remaining choices.
Experts disagree on the exact number, but short-term memory seems to be limited to no more than 10 items. Most experts call these items "chunks" and say the limit is 7, plus or minus 2. A few suggest more than 10. The key point, though, is that the number of chunks is finite and small. Understand that and you realize immediately what the problem is with a menu that lists 15 or more items. The restaurant menu without categories will seem confusing. A patron might think "Chicken almond ding sounds good and so does sha cha beef and moo shu beef and chicken lo mein. Or maybe the flower shrimp or the Mandarin beef. How about the chicken almond ding - oh, I already considered that. Oh! They have rumaki. I haven't had that in a while. But I really like lemon chicken .." And on and on. The process would be disconcerting and not particularly pleasant. This is not the ideal way for a restaurant patron to begin an experience with the restaurant. When the menu has categories, the patron first decides on a general class ("I think I'm in the mood for beef today.") The next step is to review only the beef items: "Mandarin? No, I had that last week. Szechuan? No, I want something less spicy. Beef with green peppers? Yes! That's it." Web site visitors have the same feelings when they encounter what appears to be a never-ending menu. Offering too many choices is likely to chase a new visitor away from your site. Auto manufacturers could offer cars in hundreds of colors, but they don't. For any model year, they choose no more than about 10 colors. And they organize accessories into groups. Even if you have a car custom built, you'll be offered just a few choices. That way the sale doesn't get bogged down in details. What's the answer for Web sites that have a lot of information? Use the restaurant menu approach. Organize everything you have into no more than 7 major categories and show just those category headings. Allow the visitor to select the various headings to see the categories beneath. Sites that have an enormous amount of material may have to make menus that are several levels deep. Limit any sub menu to no more than 7 chunks to avoid overwhelming the visitor. It's important that you spend enough time on developing the site's structure and menu. These are the factors that control how visitors will interact with your site. Make it easy for them to move around and collect information if you value their presence. |
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The
problem is that we use our short-term memory to process decisions. Do
I want the beef or the pork? Chow mein or chicken? Chinese restaurants
often have huge menus with dozens of choices. What if the owner simply
listed everything alphabetically (see figure 1). Would people be likely
to find what they're looking for?
Short-term
memory is a wonderful thing. It's what allows us to remember a phone number
long (785-9359) enough to walk across the room and dial the phone. Short-term
memory doesn't retain information for more than a few seconds though.
If the number is important, we write it down or store it to our long-term
memory. Do neither and it'll be gone in about 15 seconds. (Without looking,
do you still remember that phone number?
William Blinn Communications - All Rights Reserved |
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