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The Interaction Design Foundation
Information Overload, Why it Matters and How to Combat It
0:00 02:08

Presenting useful information to your users is important. Presenting too much information, however, can be a bad thing. Its known as Information Overload. Information Overload describes the excess of information available to a person working to complete a task, or make a decision. When a person is presented with too much information, it's easy to get overwhelmed. This actually impedes the decision-making process, resulting in a poor, or even no decision being made at all. When designing products (e.g., websites or apps), designers should be especially careful to ensure they prevent information overload from affecting user experience. It's interesting to note that this problem isnt anything new. Information Overload has plagued humans from Biblical times, to the Renaissance, through the Industrial Revolution, though never has it been experienced to this degree, These days you might say we have an overload of Information Overload with technology being the obvious contributor to the problem. Think about it. HUGE amounts of information is being created around the clock, around the Globe. Information that comes in from many sources including radio, tv and, of course the Internet.  So what can we do? Perhaps the first suggestion is for web & app developers, blog hosts and other content creators try to remember that LESS is MORE! Try to present only the most relevant content, keep it simple and provide additional supporting material only when needed. Also try to insure the information you DO post is well-balanced and credible. Another thing you can do is tighten up your email settings so that only top relatable content makes it to your in-box. Delegate the task of skimming through all that information to team members, instructing them to highlight only that which is most relevant to your goal and then move on.