Decision time increases logarithmically with the number of equally likely choices.
Hick and Hyman's 1952-53 work. Because the growth is logarithmic, adding options is cheap up to a point and menu depth matters less than menu organisation.
In practice
- A menu of six dishes is chosen from quickly; one of sixty takes barely twice as long, and the difficulty is in the organisation rather than the count.
- A settings screen with forty options grouped into five sections is navigated faster than twelve options in no order.
- Subject
- Design & Systems
- Essay
- The limits every design runs into