notes and views on crm, social media, and the human side of information technology

The dilemma of choices

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU but whenever I come to a restaurant for the first time, I dread the moment I’ll be presented the menu. Unless it’s a single sheet of paper with five items per category, I find myself unable to resist the temptation to make a perfect choice; 10 minutes and several apologies to the waitress later, I ask for the house special.

For me, the perfect restaurant would have no menu at all. I would ask for “something good”, and the staff would know right away what I mean.

Telepathy hasn’t gone mainstream yet, though, so I am forced to make choices. Whether it’s picking the right suit for the occasion, figuring out which hotel in the area is best, or going through the avalanche of Open Office menus to get to the functionality I need. And the discussion about how many choices are practical is going on in the software and restaurant industry without ever arriving at the right answer (though I am still waiting for a “Daily Menu” option in a desktop app - so perhaps the restaurant industry has a slight edge!)

Kathy Sierra elaborated on this topic. She asks, “But even when users do have the expertise to make good decisions, do they want to?” Obviously, it depends, and she acknowledges as much. It’s one of those questions that make little sense unless you limit the context. Mine is custom software development for a single enterprise client (hers is packaged software if I read it correctly).

The advantage of developing for a single client is that you get to know him pretty well. Hence, you can analyze his level of competence and adjust the application complexity accordingly. Does that eliminate the dilemma of choices? No, but answering it is a lot easier than when you’re developing for untold thousands of users you’ll never meet.

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February 22, 2007 | Filed Under Software delivery 

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