Hick's Law

Decision time grows logarithmically with the number and complexity of choices.

How to apply it

Show 2–3 primary options. Tuck the rest behind 'More options'.

Hick's Law in practice: a concrete example

A streaming app's first screen

Show a new viewer 40 genres at once and they freeze. Show three curated rows instead (“Continue watching”, “Because you liked X”, “Trending”) and they press play in seconds. Same catalogue, but each screen now asks for one small decision instead of one overwhelming one. Netflix, Spotify, and the App Store all lead with a handful of curated choices for exactly this reason.

Common Hick's Law mistakes

Counting the number of options but ignoring their complexity. Ten clearly different choices are easier than four near-identical ones.
Cutting choices by burying important actions behind “More”. Speed isn't worth hiding something people actually need.
Applying it to expert tools. A trader's dashboard or an IDE is faster with more visible controls, not fewer.

When Hick's Law doesn't apply

When users are experts doing a task repeatedly, more visible options and shortcuts beat a tidy, nested menu. Hiding things just adds clicks. And when choices are genuinely distinct and scannable, a longer flat list can be faster than a shorter menu that forces people to drill in.

Practise it on a real challenge

Checkout — the cart that keeps getting abandoned

An e-commerce checkout bleeds carts at the payment step — surprise costs, a forced account signup, and a wall of undivided fields. Spot what's driving people away.