The Role of Different User Interfaces When Reducing Choice Overload : A study on the effects of single-list, grid and multi-list user interfaces on users’ experience.

Abstract: A common belief is that the larger the variety of options, the better. However, humans have a limited cognitive capacity, which can lead to people experiencing choice overload (Iyengar and Lepper, 2000). Limiting the number of options to reduce choice overload is not a feasible solution. While there have been studies in regards to minimising choice overload with a help of recommender systems, aspects of how the choice set is presented in the user interface received little attention. This study aimed to investigate three commonly used user interfaces (UI); a single-list, a grid and a multi-list. An online experiment was conducted to answer the research questions. Results from this study imply that the single-list UI performed the worst across chosen measures, and was most likely to cause choice overload among participants. Multi-list and grid UI reported better performance and were less likely to cause choice overload among participants.