What is the ideal amount of packaging information that our brain can take?

In recent years, with the advent of UX design, we have heard the term “friction” over and over again. This term is used in UX design when something in the design slows the user down or makes it difficult for the user to accomplish their task. For example, when we want to add products to the cart but can not find the "+" button, or when we want to keep scrolling but do not know how or where to go next. Often, this friction is added intentionally to make it more difficult to complete or abandon tasks.

As I keep emphasizing, our brain is constantly in energy saving mode because its main function is to manage our body's resources. It manages our metabolism, our water, our salts, our glucose and so on. For that, it uses 20% of our energy. That's quite a lot. One of the best tools for optimizing energy is our memory. Based on our experience, it can predict what is going to happen and thus prepare the resources we need. It is a pattern-searching machine.

Understanding this, we can explain that our brain leaves a website because it needs a lot of energy to understand how it works, and it will do the same with a package that generates the same.

But what elements create friction within a packaging?

This shows that minimalism is not only an aesthetic and snobbish matter, but that few elements and graphics allow our brain to understand more easily what is to be communicated, because it requires less energy. And by that I do not mean minimalism is the only way, but we need to be aware that the more elements or information we add, the more energy is demanded from our brain. Often brands try to put multiple benefits on the front, believing that the consumer will pause to read every piece of text. In fact, it provokes just the opposite. Therefore, it is extremely important that the hierarchies are clear and the information is organised, especially if the space on the front is small and the information cannot be reduced.

Study

Jacoby, Speller, and Kohn were among the first researchers in the field of consumer behavior to attempt to evaluate the effects of marketer-controlled information (i.e., package label information) on consumers' product choices by studying the effects of different amounts of information on the accuracy of consumers' brand selection decisions. This study, entitled "Brand Choice Behavior as a Function of Information Load," was first conducted with college students in 1974 and then replicated with housewives.

In the first study they used laundry detergent. Twelve brands and six types of dimensions were included. The dimensions were bleach content, enzyme content, fabric softener content, phosphate content, price, and quantity required per wash load.

Participants were then asked to answer a series of questions related to the number of brands presented and the amount of information or dimensions of each product. For the replication conducted with housewives, two products were used: Rice and Prepared Dinners, with a similar number of participants, brands and dimensions.

Both studies found that increasing the information load of packaging tended to produce (1) dysfunctional effects on the consumer's ability to choose the brand that best suited him or her and (2) positive effects on the consumer's satisfaction, certainty, and confusion in making his or her selection. In other words, subjects felt better when they had more information, but actually made worse purchase decisions.

So the solution is not simply to reduce the amount of information, but to select the most appropriate information, present it in an orderly manner and with clear hierarchies to optimize our purchasing decisions and basically our energy.