The Choice Overload Theory: The Dance between No Choice and Too Much

1) The more the better?

Giving people more options is not always better. While we might equate choice with freedom, the exact opposite is often true - too many options can become painful. This agony of choice is known as the psychological principle of “Choice Overload Effect”.

2) Choice Overload

According to Choice Hacking, the Choice Overload Theory states that when there are too many options, people can become anxious, will disengage, and can even become depressed.

3) The Study behind

Columbia University conducted a well know Jam-Sample-Study which demonstrated the effect of Choice Overload. The research team set up a booth of jam samples in a store. They switched between a selection of 24 jams to only 6 jams.

When offering 24 jams, 60% of customers would sample but only 3% bought a jam.

When offering 6 jams, only 40% stopped to sample but 30% of those people bought a jam.

4) The Lesson

Lots of options will get people to browse, but fewer options will trigger them to buy.

5) The Paradox

Offering no choice at all is not the answer. According to Barry Schwartz: “When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear.”

Source: Choice Hacking

The graph illustrates that until a certain point happiness increases with the number of choices. After that, happiness rapidly declines.

6) Conclusion

The number of choices a customer has is not a thing that can be ultimately determined by one company alone. But when it comes to option, you can offer a limited number and make it easy to compare between products. You might want to use Grammarly as an example:

Source: Grammarly

They offer only 3 options and make it easy to compare features across products.