What is it: Miller’s Law simply suggests that we humans aren’t very good at remembering more than seven or so ‘bits’ of information. If we’re given more information, we filter out what we believe isn’t valuable…
“That’s a great list of options, but.. er, I’ll have the one you said last please.”
Overview
For most people, being given lots of new information can be, at best a little stressful, or at worst overwhelming. If you’ve ever had the dreaded “I’ll introduce you to the team” walk around on your first day in a new workplace, you’ll know what I mean. You’re introduced to the whole team, all 20 of them, and you know deep down, you’ll walk in tomorrow and remember, at best, some of them, and worst none. Then there is that awkward time when you fear asking someone what their name is again and the longer it goes on, the worse it gets!
Unless you’re trained specifically to take on board lots of new information quickly, like an actor learning lines for example, Miller’s Law suggests most of us will struggle to remember more than seven or so ‘bits’ (separate pieces) of information in one go, or retain more than seven or so in our working memory.
George A. Miller was a Professor of psychology at Princeton (1920–2012) and proposed this law based on studies of communication. It’s also know as ‘The Magic Number Seven’.
If we’re given more than this number of things to remember or handle (and I’m talking about concurrently, in short-term, working memory or in quick succession), our cognitive biases start to kick in and we’ll quickly start to subconsciously drop information we believe might not be that important. The key here is ‘subconsciously’ because, if we’re given a lot if information quickly, we can rationally decide what stays and what goes.
Lists of bits of information given quickly are particularly difficult. If we’re given lists, we’ll often remember either the first or last bit. Ever wondered how to influence who people chose? There is a great psychological hack here. Give them a list and put your preferred choice either first or last… this works especially well with children!
What can we do to avoid this?
Millers’ Law is particularly relevant in communication and user experience (UX) design.
When we are communicating, especially when we’re expecting good recall, remember to break complex ideas or lists down into sections. Once information is processed by the receiver, especially if it is reinforced by other means; visual or physical repitition, the information is stored longer term, and you can address short term memory again.
If you’re giving a talk or speech and you want good, instant recall, limit the outcomes or key points to this magic seven, and repeat them often, especially at the end.
Millers’ Law is also relevant to UX design. In visual design, such as Web or app design, UX designers need to be aware that offering too many choices at once (for example top0-level navigation options) is confusing and likely to result in a user simply hitting the back button and being lost to you. Not great when you’ve gone to effort and expense of getting them to your ecommerce store initially.
Break down options on products (such as size or colour) to this magic number, or if you can’t group them and have a two-stage selection process.
Takeaways
Think three is the magic number? It's seven, well here it is anyway. Break new information or particularly lists, down into sections of seven and allow time for the information to be processed into longer term memory, before adding more.
Remember, that if we're overloaded with information, we start to drop parts of it. If we're given more than seven bits of information, we'll likely remember the first or last parts, or our biases and filters will start to drop parts of it, based on our beliefs and experiences, without us knowing. This is called the 'Availability Heuristic' (see another tutorial) and can significantly skew our recall.
Look at 'Anchoring'. This is our bias towards being disproportionately swayed by the first piece of information we receive. Be aware, the first piece of information we receive can affect the rest, and this is particularly so with numerical figures, like prices and statistics.
