Hick's Law
More choice, slower decisions
What it is
The time it takes to make a decision increases logarithmically with the number of options available. Each additional choice requires cognitive effort to evaluate, increasing decision time and the likelihood of abandonment or regret.
In the real world
Streaming services that limit genre categories to five or six top-level options see higher engagement than those with dozens. Well-designed checkout flows present one decision at a time — shipping, then payment, then review — rather than all fields at once.
Apply it
Count the choices on this screen. If a single decision point has more than five to seven options, ask: which can be removed, grouped, or deferred to a later step?
Nielsen Norman Group · W.E. Hick & R. Hyman, 1952