Law of Minimal Effort

As people default to minimal effort, framing the alternative as more work could motivate users to complete setup steps they'd otherwise skip.

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Clearer labels and fewer options could improve users' understanding of your service, as they're unlikely to put much effort into learning how it works.

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Nike Contextualising the effort

Making features look less daunting could increase feature usage, since users following the path of least effort tend to skip anything that looks like work.

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Starting users on one easy task at a time might help them form habits, which run on autopilot and take less effort to maintain than to break.

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Consultant to 100+ companies

Written by Peter Ramsey

Published: 01/09/2023

How to utilise this in your designs

During setup, you could remind users of the effort they'd face if they skip importing settings, so the path of minimal effort is also the one that helps them most.

Example from

Arc

Try opening with one easy-to-answer question that feeds straight into a related lesson, so getting value takes almost one click and minimal effort.

Example from

Ahead

During sign-up, you could encourage users to pick one 'easy' task to start, so onboarding becomes a low-effort quick win they're more likely to complete.

Example from

Me+

You could let new users create a habit straight away, before asking them to make an account, removing the up-front effort that might make them leave.

Example from

Atoms

When asking for a subjective rating, try comparing each option to something obvious, like being able to talk, so users can answer with minimal effort.

Example from

Nike

Possible impacts

Keeping first interactions low effort, e.g., one easy question, might help hold users' attention before their pull toward minimal effort draws them away.

As seen in:

As people default to minimal effort, framing the alternative as more work could motivate users to complete setup steps they'd otherwise skip.

As seen in:

Clearer labels and fewer options could improve users' understanding of your service, as they're unlikely to put much effort into learning how it works.

As seen in:

Nike Contextualising the effort

Making features look less daunting could increase feature usage, since users following the path of least effort tend to skip anything that looks like work.

As seen in:

Starting users on one easy task at a time might help them form habits, which run on autopilot and take less effort to maintain than to break.

As seen in: