UX experiments / Choice design
Choice design · Field experiment · contested
24 flavors or 6: which jam display sold more?
A jam tasting table: 24 flavors or 6 flavors. Which sold more jam?
Make your call. Which version won, and why? Decide before you open the result. Guessing first is what trains your judgment.
Made your call? See the result
30% bought with 6 flavors, 3% with 24.
What happened
More people stopped at the big display, but far fewer bought. Later meta-analyses found choice overload is real only under some conditions, so treat this as a famous case, not a law.
Why it worked
Too many options can make choosing feel risky and effortful, so people put it off.
The takeaway
Curate when people don't know what they want. Then test, because the effect varies.
More experiments to call
Practice the call
Call experiments like these every day.
Irreplaceable gives you a few real experiments a day to call before you see the result, and tracks how your judgment improves. Start with a free baseline: 12 decisions, about 12 minutes.