10 — Make every decision feel light

It’s estimated that people make over 35,000 decisions every day. That could be deciding to have tea or coffee in the morning or deciding which school their children should enrol in. Every decision comes with weight. Some decisions can result in amazing things to happen, some decisions can result in complete disaster. Decisions are heavy.

Software has infinite bounds. It can, in theory, be anything we like and it doesn’t have to play to the same rules as real life. There is no getting around it, your app is adding more decisions to a person’s day and because we are controlling that environment that decisions are taking place we can push harder to make them feel as light as possible for the user.

It’s your responsibility to make those decisions feel as light, as painless and as reversible as possible.

• For every Play button, there should be a Stop.
• For every Add button, there should be a Remove.
• For every Save button, there should be a Cancel.

For any decision that can not have such an easy reversible, it should be made very clear to the user what is about to happen and why. As much anxiety should be removed from the decision as possible and you should respect them with the knowledge they need to make an informed choice.

Takeaway

Decisions can come with anxiety which result in positive or negative outcomes. Humans are also prone to making mistakes and your app should help minimise them or, better yet, provide ways to reverse them.

Further learning topics: Decision Making