Flexible Choice
Mozilla Firefox gets choice right. On the surface it doesn’t feel like it gives you too many options. It’s clean; it’s simple. The addons are mentioned when you install, but they are not pushed into your face, so the average user can easily ignore them. And still the power user can easily customise it to their hearts content.
My degree is another great example of getting choice right. If I decide I want a named degree I have to elect to take certain units. That keeps me focused, but I also know I have the option of getting a general unnamed degree and I can study what I want. Within each unit, there is a set of things I must study. That keeps me focused, but afterwards I can read around the subject wherever my fancy takes me. It’s flexible in that way, but not so flexible that I find myself off course.
Kathy Sierra writes this about choice:
In the 80’s, the big thing in education was Learner Control. With hypertext tools came CBT programs and learners were finally put in charge of their own paths through material. The learner was empowered! Just one problem: most people pretty much suck at making sound learning decisions, especially when they don’t already know the material. So, the era of more-is-better-for-learner-control was over.
Then in the 90’s — Whoo-Hoo! Interactive Movies! Interactive Television shows! Interactive Fiction! Outside of rare novelties and a few good story-driven games, most of us would rather leave our storytelling to Steven King or Steven Spielberg, thank-you. A huge part of the point of movies and novels is to be swept into another world–a world we do not have any responsibility for.
People love abundent choice, but they don’t like to see too many options at once. If my parents watch a movie they want a small choice to look through because they haven’t heard of most of the films. I, on the other hand, want unlimited choice.
The reason my degree course works so well is the same reason Firefox works well. The default behaviour is to be led by the hand and told exactly what to do. But if that gets frustrating, I can make the decision to go off and explore on my own. How does my course do this? By providing the content in the form of a book. A chapter in a book is typically read from start to finish — from introduction to conclusion. So if I find something particularly interesting, rather than hitting a hyperlink to it I make a note (mental or written) and then continue with the chapter. This way I get things done in a very focused way but I also have that freedom I desire.
Kathy Sierra refers to the middle ground as the canyon of pain. Once you have reached the limitations of a product it becomes frustrating to continue using it, but it also hurts to take on the more advanced product because of the learning curve. Thankfully software can be built so that it is flexible enough to grow with the user.
It can also be flexible according to context. So, for example, we can take time out to set a goal and then it locks us out of changing that goal until a certain time or outcome has been reached.