"Most people think that sparking creativity is all about adding things[1]. They tend to think that the more they add to a particular venture or product or service, the better. More features-sure that will add to the creative element of the offering! More options? Yes, please! That will add choice, which will lead to better outcomes. We tend to associate more with being better. But when it comes to creativity, less is more."
"Psychologist Barry Schwartz's seminal concept, The Paradox of Choice[2], introduced into the mainstream the suggestion that the more options we have, the less satisfied we feel with our decisions. This tends to occur because having too many options is tiring and leads to fatigue of choice. We need to process each choice individually, and that takes time and effort. It is a cognitive load on our brains."
"They found that if a display case held 24 different flavors of jam (strawberry, grape, etc.), the display attracted visitors, yet only converted 3 percent of the people drawn to the display into buyers. Then, after reducing the 24 types to just 6 types of jam, they found that the display attracted fewer customers but ended up leading to a sale 30 percent of the time."
People commonly assume creativity comes from adding features and options. More options often produce choice overload, increasing cognitive load, decision fatigue, regret, and dissatisfaction with choices. Research on the paradox of choice indicates that greater assortments can reduce satisfaction. Empirical evidence shows large assortments attract attention but lower conversion, while smaller assortments raise purchase rates. Pruning options and simplifying ideas clarifies meaning, lowers the effort required to decide, and supports stronger creative outcomes. Simple creative ideas frequently outperform complex ones by being clearer, more communicable, and easier for people to act on.
Read at Psychology Today
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