Bookmarks, collections and Hick's law

[sunidhi-kashyap]

What is the problem you are trying to solve?

The existence of both "collections" and "bookmarks" increases complexity and it takes longer for the user to make a decision, when it comes to saving a site for future use.

Why is it a problem?

Hick's Law states that the time required for a user to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choice available. So basically the more choices you have or the harder the choices are, the longer it takes for your user to make a decision.

The existence of both "collections" and "bookmarks" increases complexity and it takes longer for the user to make decision, when it comes to saving a site for future use.

Let’s say a user visits a site and wants to save it for later use. In Firefox Preview, user has bookmarks and collections. By Hick’s Law, the complexity increases. The user here has 2 options, which is not a lot. But looking closely, the interaction involves multiple steps. Which increases the number of tasks.

How would you solve the problem? What is your design proposal?

To solve the problem, as a user we must ask ourselves 2 questions : 1) Do I really need both of them? 2) Which one is better, "collections" or "bookmarks"?

To find this out I ran a usability test on an average college student. I asked him to make 2 different folders and add one-one websites each, 1st using "collections" and then using "bookmarks", and I timed both the processes.

The results : Using collections : about 1 min Using bookmarks : about 3 mins

So, the ratio of time taken is, 1:3. It takes three times more time to do the same task using bookmarks, as it does using collections.

Then asked the user, above 2 questions and his response were; 1)No, he didn't feel like he needed both of them. 2)He found collections better, given that making a new folder on bookmarks was "really confusing and frustrating".

So, a good design will be removing the bookmarks option.

How would you measure your designs effectiveness?

This design will be effective because; a)A user won't be confused when wanting to save a website for future use. b)He will straightaway go for the collections, since it is in the homepage and adding a website to the collections is way more discoverable and intuitive, compared to the bookmarks option. c)When a user already has "collections", he would not even think of using bookmarks. d)Collections make Firefox Preview unique and user friendly.

[topotropic]

Thanks for the contribution. I really liked your explanation and quick hallway test you documented here.

[sunidhi-kashyap]

Thanks for the contribution. I really liked your explanation and quick hallway test you documented here.

Thankyou so much for your appreciation! It keeps me motivated to do more.