Reduce complex behavior to simple tasks, increasing the benefit/cost ratio and in turn influencing users to perform
▲ Google reduces meaningful search on the web to something simple by relying on what was highlighted by other websites via back-links as being the most relevant for the user.
The Persuasive Patterns Card Deck is a collection of 60 design patterns driven by psychology, presented in a manner easily referenced and used as a brainstorming tool.
Get your deck!Reduce otherwise complex functionality into something simple and easily understood. The process of hiding complexity implies removing possible areas of use in order to highlight others. Keep it simple. Make it easy. We prefer to use products and services that give us better return on the information we give them.
Reduction happens when the designer make informed and qualified guesses as to what users’ preferences are. Making design decisions that restrict a product’s usage to simple and few forms gives a product a direction. A direction that limits what a product can be used for.
The principle of reduction is about hiding complexity – making something very complex seem very simple. The process of hiding complexity implies removing possible areas of use in order to highlight others.
Keep it simple, make it easy.
A wide navigation structure with fewer levels performs better than a narrow navigation structure with more levels.
A common way of implementing the principle of reduction, is for a system to make decisions on behalf of the user based on what other users in similar situations decided.
Amazon reduces the task of finding an interesting book to buy to something simple by suggesting books that users with similar interests found interesting.
Google reduces meaningful search on the web to something simple by relying on what was highlighted by other websites via backlinks as being the most relevant for the user.
As humans, we are cognitively lazy. We like to get the maximum benefit for minimum return. We prefer to use products and services that give us better return on the information we give it.
1 Amanda Shiga, Persuasion and Information Architecture
2 B. J. Fogg, Persuasive technology:
using computers to change what we think and do, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003