Sheena Iyengar identifies four techniques to help make decisions: cut, concretize, categorize, and condition for complexity. With the help of these four techniques not only can businesses make decision making easier for consumers, but also individuals could make decision making easier for themselves. The key is finding ways to deal with choice overload.
The first of the four techniques is to cut or get rid of extraneous alternatives. This gives the decision maker less chance to become overwhelmed. When there are too many choices people can shut down and not make a decision at all. Concretize means to make the choice real; this can be done by using visuals or photos in place of words. With categories, the decision maker can handle more categories because they can quickly eliminate the ones they are not interested in and focus on the ones they are. Finally, condition for complexity, which means decisions, should be presented in order from lowest to highest in choice, or from easiest to hardest. This sets the decision maker up to be able to make the difficult choices.
As a decision maker I like having options but at some point it becomes overwhelming, this is where limiting the number of options available can help. When I shop at the grocery store I have two basic options when choosing what to buy, I either stick to a brand I like or I am looking for a certain flavor, taste or purpose of a product. If I am buying based on brand then I am usually aware of the options they offer and can make a decision based on that, this is the easiest of my grocery store decisions. If I am looking for a certain taste, flavor or purpose then things become more complicated, such as choosing a jam for the kids. I know they have a favorite flavor, strawberry, but we don’t have a particular brand we prefer so my decision becomes more difficult. I then have to narrow things down by criteria I have set forth, such as no sugar added, seedless and price. If I have used my criteria to narrow down the choices and I still have fifteen options I am most likely to become frustrated and walk away without anything. However, if I have narrowed things down and I am left with three to five options (or less) then I am more likely to choose one and move on to the next product without any frustration at all. Cutting the amount of choices a decision maker has may seem counterintuitive but it can actually be more helpful in the long run. The last thing anyone wants is an overwhelmed decision maker.
I am a huge fan of categories when it comes to decision-making. By allowing me to narrow down the categories to only those that pertain to me the retailer has already eliminated the chances of my becoming overwhelmed. I recently experienced a great use of categories by a website that made my decision to purchase from them obvious. About ninety percent of my family’s purchases are online, and I spend a lot of time researching the options available to me. Over the past week, I have been on the hunt for a pair of skis for my oldest, and he has some specific guidelines as to what he wants and I have my own guidelines as to price and shipping options. I had narrowed my search to two websites, and I began to look for skis on each website. I quickly came to the realization that one website was going to win based on ease of use alone, it allowed me to shop via categories and break them down into subcategories as I went on. This was a major factor in my decision. I was able to choose outlet skis, then from there I chose Twin Tips (as that was the type of ski he wanted), and from there I chose skis with bindings, length and I sorted the results my price. After a few short minutes, I had eight options to choose from, which I narrowed down to two (based on price) and gave my son the option of those two and he picked the one he liked most. This entire process took about 10 minutes start to finish and it was all because I was able to weed out the skis I was not interested in by using the categories provided by the website.
To me, making decisions is all about first deciding what I do not want, these options are easily eliminated in the first few minutes. From there things become more difficult when I have to actually decide what I do want. Cutting options and organizing them into categories can make decisions easier. We live in a world of instant gratification and wanting multiple choices for everything, but is that always the best option? We seemed to have survived for years with fewer options and waiting to obtain the things we need or want so why the change to have an overwhelming amount of options that are available at a moments notice. I think sometimes the simpler the better.
Iyengar, S. (2011). How to make choosing easier. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose
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