{"id":6062,"date":"2013-07-30T14:59:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T04:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=6062"},"modified":"2016-02-23T16:19:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T05:19:25","slug":"giving-a-wealth-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/07\/giving-a-wealth-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving a wealth of choice&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I often pick up <a title=\"Poor surveys are time wasters\u2026\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/03\/poor-surveys-are-time-wasters\/\" target=\"_blank\">surveys for errors they make<\/a> &#8211; it is unfortunately a common occurrence.<\/p>\n<p>Today I spotted one that used perfect <a title=\"grammar tips and information\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/category\/grammar-details-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">grammar<\/a>\u00a0and made perfect sense. The question listed the following options for someone&#8217;s gender:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>male<\/li>\n<li>female<\/li>\n<li>intersex<\/li>\n<li>other (please specify)<\/li>\n<li>prefer not to say<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For a question where I am used to see two possible answers (male and female), such a long list surprised me!<\/p>\n<h2>How much is too much?<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_6071\" style=\"width: 464px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/blank_page_list.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6071\" class=\" wp-image-6071 \" alt=\"Blank page over a list of bullet points\" src=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/blank_page_list.jpg\" width=\"454\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/blank_page_list.jpg 648w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/blank_page_list-300x179.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/blank_page_list-150x89.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6071\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">When talking to clients, I talk about writing from their points or from scratch &#8211; I don&#8217;t list writing blog posts, webcopy, disclosure documents, annual reports and letters. Fewer options make their decision easier.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>How many choices make it hard to choose?<\/p>\n<p>For a question with a clear answer (like how old are you or do you live in Australia), a lot of choices can work as you can skim across the options to find the relevant response.<\/p>\n<p>But at other times, a large choice can hamper people actually making a decision.<\/p>\n<p>I think there is a balance between not restricting people, offering them options, and overwhelming them with choice. Especially if some of the options are going to be chosen by a very limited number of people.<\/p>\n<p>In business, <a title=\"Cutting the number of services you offer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.m4bmarketing.com\/5-benefits-of-cutting-the-number-of-services-you-offer\/\" target=\"_blank\">too many choices can result in people being indecisive<\/a> and not buying.<\/p>\n<p>I know it can be hard to not offer something (what if my next potential client wants exactly the thing I don&#8217;t mention?) but considering if <em>less is more<\/em> can simplify and help your customers.<\/p>\n<p>[Tweet &#8220;Consider if less is more before giving customers lots of choices&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>You can always add a note somewhere to the effect of &#8216;if what you want isn&#8217;t listed, give us a call&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>So how many options does your business offer?<\/p>\n<p>Have you considered if it is too many, or how it could be simplified?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I often pick up surveys for errors they make &#8211; it is unfortunately a common occurrence. Today I spotted one that used perfect grammar\u00a0and made perfect sense. The question listed the following options for someone&#8217;s gender: male female intersex other (please specify) prefer not to say For a question where I am used to see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425,53],"tags":[158,1655,143],"class_list":["post-6062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-communications","category-business-info-tools","tag-choice","tag-gender","tag-survey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6062"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6077,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions\/6077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}