ABSTRACT
There are 1,349 cameras on the market. How do you decide which one to buy? (Marty Neumeier, 2006, p. 9)
Having recently purchased a new camera, I would have to venture a guess that at the time of this writing, Neumeier’s 2006 count of the number of cameras on the market is probably an underestimation. Yet within the span of three or four days, I went from the decision that it was time to replace my current camera with a new one to ordering an Olympus digital zoom model, having begun the search process with little notion about the number of choices available, no list of specifications as to what I wanted or needed, and not much of an idea about preferred brands. That such a decision could be made at all is rather impressive, yet consumers are required to make such choices all the time, whether they are choosing among cameras, computers, cars, laundry detergents, breakfast cereals, cat foods, vacation destinations, or restaurant menu items. Given the proliferation of brands in the contemporary marketplace (see Box 5.1 ) and the convergence in quality among the offerings across product and service categories, it seems reasonable to ask, as a corollary to Neumeier’s question, whether our choices would be easier and any less agonizing if we had fewer alternatives to select from. In other words, is it the case that “more is less”? Before addressing these questions, consider the example of the famous jam experiment.
