The more information you have, the better decisions you can make, right?

Wrong.

It turns out that doctors make better diagnoses when they have less information. Shoppers buy more when they have fewer options. Accountants are more effective when they have less information. So are investors, seniors, psychologists and Marines.

Let’s take a look at the research …

Doctors make better decisions with less information.

A cardiologist named Lee Goldman created an equation to take the guesswork out of treating chest pain, Malcolm Gladwell reports in Blink. Doctors, he found, would make the best diagnoses if they combined ECG results with the answers to just three questions:

• Is the patient’s pain unstable angina?
• Is there fluid in the patient’s lungs?
• Is the patient’s systolic blood pressure below 100?

When emergency room doctors at Cook County Hospital (the one that inspired the TV show “ER”) used Goldman’s equation, they diagnosed heart attacks correctly 95% of the time. When they gathered lots of additional information about the patient, they diagnosed heart attacks correctly just 75% to 89% of the time.

So consider user intent. Are these folks supposed to make good decisions based on your content? If so, a high-quality short-form piece might make more sense.

Accountants are more successful with less information.

Two accounting professors at the University of South Carolina hypothesized that too much information would overload accountants studying companies’ fiscal health.

That overload, Eugene G. Chewning Jr., Ph.D, CPA, and Adrian M. Harrell, Ph.D, believed, would hurt the accountants’ decision-making abilities. So they decided to test that theory.

The professors gave each of 84 accountants and accounting students four to eight financial ratios (such as P/E, or price/earnings ratios).

Then they asked these participants to predict whether a company would suffer some kind of financial distress — such as filing for bankruptcy, defaulting on a loan payment or missing a stock dividend payment — within the next three years.

Accountants were more successful at predicting the right outcome when they received six ratios instead of four.

But when they received eight ratios, they were less successful than when they received only six ratios.

Why?

Because the more information they received, the less they used. When they were given six ratios, the accountants actually used five; but with eight, they incorporated only four ratios into their decision-making process.

“The decision maker is considered to have experienced information overload at the point where the amount of information actually integrated into the decisions begins to decline,” Chewning and Harrell write. They may not even be aware that they’re doing it.

Shoppers, investors, others perform better with less.

Indeed:

• Shoppers buy more when they have fewer options. In one study, researcher Sheena Iyengar set up a tasting booth of gourmet jams. When offered six flavors, 30% of folks who stopped by the booth bought some jam. When faced with 24 options, only 3% of shoppers made a purchase.
• The more information they get, the less likely employees are to opt into their 401(k) plans. In a study for Vanguard, Iyengar found that for every 10 funds a company added to its options, the number of employees enrolling dropped by 2%. With two options, 75% of employees participated; when there were 59 funds, only 60% enrolled. “If it’s a lot of work to choose among the funds, many people will postpone the decision and never sign up,” she says.
• Seniors perform poorly when overwhelmed with Medicare plans. When seniors had to choose a Medicare prescription drug benefit, they were overwhelmed by dozens of similar options. In the end, some 10% of seniors didn’t enroll by the deadline, even though it meant they’d have to pay extra to enroll late.

Too much information also made it harder for psychologists to diagnose patients and for Marines to win battles, Gladwell reports.

Short-form content also makes messages easier to read, more efficient to read, and easier to understand and remember. And it helps readers choose more wisely.

Is that extra word count really worth it?

‘Selecting is stealing resources from understanding.’

Why do people use fewer pieces of information when they have more?

Before they’re overloaded with information, people spend their time understanding the information they receive. When they have more information than they have time to process, they spend their time instead selecting which information to process.

“‘Selecting’ is stealing resources from ‘understanding,’ resulting in poorer decisions,” writes TJ Larkin, principal of Larkin Communication Consulting.

Are you giving your readers so much information that they’re focused on selecting instead of understanding? If so, you may be hurting their ability to make good decisions.

Don’t drown them in data.

It would seem that the more information we give people, the better off they’d be. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. The more information people get, it seems, the worse their decision-making skills become.

Is that really the purpose of your content marketing strategy?

“Having an abundance of information does not always translate into” informed choices, write researchers Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peters. “The amount of information may exceed human information processing skills.”

And when that happens, people shut down. They may simplify the decision by relying on others’ advice, by ignoring some of the information or by basing their decisions on the wrong things. Or they may not make a decision at all (Hibbard, Slovic and Jewett, 1997).

Does your long form content require too much of your readers? What types of content might be better if they’re shorter?

In Blink, Gladwell writes:

“We take it, as a given, that the more information decision makers have, the better off they are. …

“But what does the Goldman algorithm say? Quite the opposite: that all that extra information isn’t actually an advantage at all … In fact … that extra information is more than useless. It’s harmful. It confuses the issues.”

As Tom Rosenstiel, former media critic for the Los Angeles Times, says:

“You’re not more informed. You’re just numbed.”

Are you informing your readers? Or just numbing them?

____

Sources: Eugene G. Chewning Jr. and Adrian M. Harrell, “The Effect of information Load on Decision Makers’ Cue Utilization Levels and Decision Quality in a Financial Distress Decision Task,” Accounting, Organizations and Society, vol. 15, no. 6, 1990, p. 527-542

Malcolm Gladwell, Blink, January 11, 2005

Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peter, “Supporting informed consumer health care decisions: data presentation approaches that facilitate the use of information in choice,” Nov. 6, 2001.

Ksenia Iastrebova, Managers’ Information Overload: The Impact of Coping Strategies on Decision-Making Performance, Ph.D. Thesis from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, March 2, 2006

TJ Larkin and Sandar Larkin, “Information Overload Hurts Performance,” Larkin Page, No. 57, March 2007

Penelope Wang, “How to make better investment choices,” Money, June 2, 2010

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Here’s a famous story among persuasion researchers and Malcolm Gladwell fans:

When a researcher offered shoppers 24 types of jam, many customers stopped by for a sample, but only 3% made a purchase. But when the researcher offered only six kinds, 30% of shoppers ended up buying jam.

“When people had too many choices, they just walked away,” says Sheena Iyengar, the researcher and author of The Art of Choosing.

Iyengar, a business professor at Columbia University, studies how people make decisions. When it comes to choice, her research shows again and again, less is almost always more.

Avoid overwhelming people.

People are also overwhelmed by the amount of information it takes to make decisions about:

401(k) plans. In a study for Vanguard, Iyengar found that for every 10 funds a company added to its options, the number of employees enrolling dropped by 2%. With two options, 75% of employees participated; when there were 59 funds, only 60% enrolled.

“If it’s a lot of work to choose among the funds, many people will postpone the decision and never sign up,” she says.

Medicare plans. When seniors had to choose a Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2006, they were overwhelmed by dozens of similar options. In the end, some 10% of seniors didn’t enroll by the deadline, even though it meant they’d have to pay extra to enroll late.

The problem, Iyengar says: “The program designers focused primarily on giving people quantity but not on quality.”

Health care plans. One of the most complex decisions we ask consumers to make is to choose among health insurance plans.

It’s not uncommon for consumers to have to compare more than 15 plans on each of 10 to 12 factors. And integrating different types of information and different types of variables makes decision-making even harder, according to researchers (Payne, Bettman and Johnson, 1993; Slovic, 1995).

Making matters worse, this information often:

• Includes technical terms and complex ideas
• Requires the reader to weigh factors based on their own values, preferences and needs
• Calls for readers to also consider coverage, benefits and costs

“More information doesn’t always improve decision-making; in fact, it can undermine it.”

— Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peters, researchers

For instance, if one hospital has high consumer satisfaction scores but average measures of safety and effectiveness, and another is highly effective but ranks low in satisfaction and safety, how do consumers weigh these factors in their choices?

What’s wrong with choice?

Making a choice takes three mental tasks, Iyengar says:

• Figuring out what you want
• Understanding the options
• Making trade-offs

This exercise becomes more complex as the choices multiply.

It would seem that the more information we give people, the better off they’d be.

But “having an abundance of information does not always translate into” informed choices, write researchers Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peters. “The amount of information may exceed human information processing skills.”

And when that happens, people shut down. They may simplify the decision by relying on others’ advice, by ignoring some of the information or by basing their decisions on the wrong things. Or they may not make a decision at all (Hibbard, Slovic and Jewett, 1997).

4 ways to reduce option overload.

So how can you make it easier for your readers to make a decision — instead of giving up and going home? Here are four ways to do that:

1. Reduce the number of options. People can keep track of five to nine choices, according to 60 years of brain research. Increase that to 20 or 30 options or more, and people become paralyzed or frustrated.

2. Think in decision layers. Try the three-by-three rule: Offer a matrix of three categories, each with three options. That’s nine options, but presented in a way that’s easier to think through.

Instead of deciding between nine options, readers make two decisions between three options each.

3. Present information clearly. “How information is presented may be just as influential as what information is presented,” Hibbard and Peters write.

To help the reader understand:

• Reduce cognitive effort. Reduce the amount of information you present through decision-support tools, an information intermediary or visual displays of quantifiable information.
• Bring the experience to life. Show people what the decision will mean to them in real life through narratives, vivid details and tailoring.
• Reframe the data. Help readers see the significance of the information by highlighting, framing and otherwise presenting the data.

“Most presentations of comparative information are based on the assumption that consumers know what is important to them and where their self-interest lies,” Hibbard and Peters write. “These assumptions are faulty.”

4. Make it vivid. Show, don’t tell. Instead of asking how big a risk readers can tolerate, give them a picture of that risk.

Literally.

When Iyengar asked study participants whether they’d like a free ticket to see amazing scenery but with a steep drop-off from a cliff, 90% took the free ticket. But when she showed pictures of that steep drop-off, only 50% accepted the ticket.

“When there’s a vivid scenario — say, a picture of money leaving your wallet, not just a number — people understand the consequences better than when they are presented with abstract notion of risk,” Iyengar says. “Casinos know this, which is why they have you gamble with chips, not actual money.”

Other benefits of short form digital content

Short form digital content also makes messages easier to read, more efficient to read and easier to understand and remember. And it helps readers make better decisions.

How long should your content really be?

_____

Sources:

Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peters, “Supporting Informed Consumer Health Care Decisions: Data Presentation Approaches that Facilitate the Use of Information in Choice,” Annual Review of Public Health, 2003, Vol. 24, pp. 413-33

Penelope Wang, “How to make better investment choices,” Money, June 2, 2010

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Writers measure copy in words, inches or pages. Readers use a different measure: time.

So instead of using writer-centric measures, think like your reader. Measure your story length in time, not space.

1. Establish estimated reading time.

Before you hit the keyboard, determine how much time you’d expect readers to spend reading each piece you write or assign.

Readers’ average reading speed is about 200 words per minute, estimates Roy Peter Clark, author of How to Write Short.

So if you are aiming for a two-minute piece, you’ll want to limit it to 400 words.

Readers might not be as interested as you wish. In one London study, for instance, employees spent only about two minutes reading their own CEO’s message. The longest message — Lloyd’s of London’s, at 872 words — got less reading time than the shorter two, from GE and Heinz, at about half that length.

2. Measure estimated reading time.

Now that you have your target, you need to stay on track. During the editing process, divide your total word count by 200 to find the average reading time for your piece.

So if your piece is 400 words long, it will take two minutes to read.

3. Reduce estimated reading time.

You might find that it makes sense to cut your piece to save your readers time.

4. Report estimated reading time.

You might be able to encourage readership by letting readers know at the beginning of each piece how long it should take them to read it. So tell ’em how long it’s going to take to tell ’em.

If your piece is short enough, reporting estimated reading time may increase readership. Readers who had planned to put your piece in the pile of things “to read later” (aka the rest stop on the way to the trash can) may say, “Geesh, surely I can spend two minutes on this now.”

Estimated reading time for this article: 2 minutes.

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When Lynn Wylie, aka Best Sister Ever, sent me an Unfancy blog post arguing that all you need to look great every day is a capsule wardrobe of 37 items per season, I scoffed.

After all, Dear Reader, Aunt Ann is a maximalist. I love Jessica Harper’s quote in Pennies From Heaven: “It’s not the money; it’s the stuff!” My jewelry box is seven stories high. When someone asked my husband about my hobbies, he replied, “Ann’s sport is dressing for dinner.”

Focus on what goes in, not what goes out.

However, Dear Reader, Aunt Ann is also OCD. I love a place for everything and everything in its place. So when I read how Unfancy suggests you get to 37 garments a season, I was intrigued:

1. Empty your closet.
2. Review each item in your wardrobe.
3. Return to your closet only the garments you absolutely love.

In decades of closet-cleaning-as-entertainment, this is by far the best approach I’ve found. I now have all of the clothes I want to wear, and none of the ones I don’t. Plus, my closet is now uncluttered and gorgeous. Shelves once stuffed with T-shirts and yoga pants now display glittering evening bags and bracelets.

Spring-clean your copy.

So I wondered: Can we adapt this approach to cutting clutter from our copy? Then I remembered: We already have!

This is the approach editing genius George Stenitzer recommends in “An Act of Commission.” When editing, George uses a highlighter to identify what stays in the message instead of a red pen to identify what goes out.

It seems like a simple shift, but it works. So give it a go. If your message winds up as clean and dazzling as my closet, your readers will love you for it.

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Size does matter.

The longer your story, the less of it your readers will read — and the less likely they are to understand and act on it.

That’s according to 60 years of research correlating story length with readership, comprehension, decision-making — even jam buying and 401(k) plan participation.

“We take it, as a given, that the more information decision makers have, the better off they are,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in Blink. But “all that extra information isn’t actually an advantage at all … In fact [it’s] more than useless. It’s harmful. It confuses the issues.”

Increase reading by 33%.

Wilbur Schramm, the “father of communication studies,” was one of the first people to study the effect of story length on reading. In 1947, he interviewed 1,050 readers about what they read, how much and why they stopped. He found that …

• A nine-paragraph-long story lost three out of 10 readers by the fifth paragraph.
• A shorter story lost only two.

That’s the 33% reading gap between a short piece and a longer one. Bottom line: The longer your piece, the less of it they’ll read.

Leave them wanting more.

In his Broadway musical “Fame Becomes Me,” Martin Short quotes another Broadway actor as saying, “Leave them wanting less.” This study shows that the reverse is, of course, better advice.

Want people to read more of your piece? Make it shorter.

___

Source: William H. DuBay, Readers, Readability, and the Grading of Text, Impact Information (Costa Mesa, California), 2007

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Talk about brief: The New York Times packs 13 stories onto its briefs page, called The (One-Page) Magazine.

Notice the combination of:

• One-paragraph profiles, trend pieces and new nuggets
• One-sentence reviews
• Charts (History, in Kardashians)
• Glossary items (This should be a word: Denigreet)
• Timelines (This one’s running across the top and down the right side)
• Infographics (This one’s running across the bottom of the page)

How brief are your briefs?
If they were briefer, would they be better?

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As a reality TV superfan, I’ve learned a lot about writing from “Project Runway” episodes.

For one thing, time management counts. The most talented designers sometimes trip over deadlines: If your model walks down the runway in a bra and a button, you’re going home no matter how brilliant your sketch looked.

The same thing’s true in writing. It’s what you deliver — on deadline — that counts.

One way to write better, easier and faster, then, is not to overdesign. A big piece of time management boils down to knowing whether you’re creating a wedding gown or a shift, a dissertation or a direct mail letter.

Hitting your number — aka writing to length — can save you an enormous amount of time. So instead of overwriting, then underwriting, map out a plan for the length of your piece before you write a single word.

1. Budget your word count.

To write to length, start with your assigned word count. Then allocate a word count to each section of your piece.

2. Map out your story.

Now determine how you’re going to use those words — which statistics, success stories and other facts and ideas will make up each paragraph.

At this point, you’ll start to see that some things won’t fit. I call this “editing before you write,” because it allows you to make most of your decisions about what goes in and what stays out before you write the first word.

The alternative: Burning time writing everything, then burning more time cutting elements after you’ve already written them.

3. Track your budget.

Once you start writing, check your word count after you finish each section. That lets you know how well you’re spending your words and whether you have more or fewer words than budgeted for the next sections.

Count me in

I don’t claim that this system allows me to hit the word count perfectly on each piece I write. But I come pretty close — plus or minus 10%, maybe.

Over the course of my career, that’s saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours of overwriting, then cutting. That’s certainly more time by far than I’ve invested in mapping out my pieces before I write.

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