The internet is making it seem like there are fewer choices. What looks more streamlined and easy can actually be a way of reducing the number of choices available to users, rather than presenting those choices to them.
Simplification as strategy
This is particularly evident in sectors such as online entertainment, where simplifying user journeys has become a priority. Some of the most successful challenger gaming companies have made the move toward more straightforward promotional structures, where offers are presented clearly and without unnecessary complication. Rather than relying on hidden conditions or overly complex wagering requirements, the focus is increasingly on making the experience easy to understand from the outset and reducing the number and types of offers.
This isn’t an accident. The paradox of choice has been studied extensively and it has been shown that services with limited choice often end up being more popular with users than those with a wide variety of options. The practice of reducing choice and thereby reducing friction is endemic and very, very profitable.
How design shapes behaviour
The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) published a report by the Government on choice architecture online. Platforms can use their design to influence users’ behaviour in a way that can benefit their commercial interests, at the detriment of consumers. The DMU highlights how the defaults, prompts and filtering presented to users in digital platforms can influence their behaviour before they have had time to think through their preferences. Design can perpetuate harm to consumers if it is designed to prioritise commercial interests, in order to maximise transactions and therefore gains, rather than to enable consumers to make well-informed choices.
The Council of Europe’s work on algorithms and autonomy raises related concerns. Automated decision-making impact may extend beyond convenience into questions of agency, particularly when users are unaware that their apparent choices have already been pre-selected.
The role of human judgment
Harvard Business School’s Alexander Rosenblat and Caleb Waugh published a study called “The Algorithmic Creation of Dehumanization” that investigates how AI technologies interact with human judgment in online platforms. The authors argue that true innovation requires us to preserve spaces where humans make real choices while interacting with technology. If a platform decides to remove decision points to boost the metrics of user experience and engagement, it may experience short term gains in engagement but risks undermining the deeper, more meaningful forms of engagement that are crucial to building a sustainable brand.
A design question with broader consequences
Simplifying platforms to make user experience more straightforward is a trend playing out in numerous places, and there is broad agreement with the underlying premise that consumers may want a more streamlined user experience, though the point at which simpleness ends and limitation begins remains unclear. Justification of strict regulation and research suggests that the structure of choice is a critical factor and that choice providers bear some culpability.
