Addressing Cognitive Overload and Choice Overload

Picture filling a cup with too much water. What happens? … The excess water runs over the edge and is wasted. The same thing happens when a person’s mind tries to process too much information: the excess also “spills over” and is lost. Some assessments show the mind can only deal with seven pieces of information each minute.

Avoiding this kind of waste is important to how Knowledge SUCCESS shares timely and relevant information for optimizing family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) programs and initiatives. We don’t want to overwhelm our audience or waste information—so we synthesize and deliver it in formats that can be well-received and used.

We heard from FP/RH professionals around the world, through our behavioral science research and co-creation workshops, that FP/RH information shared at the global level isn’t always relevant to their local setting. While some FP/RH professionals reported a lack of the types of information they need to do their jobs, others, particularly US-based professionals, reported there was too much information and not enough time to engage with it.

Across all regions, the main barriers to speeding up adoption of evidence and best practices in FP/RH programs were:

• Too much information and the daunting task of synthesising it
• Lack of time to engage with large amounts of information
• Poor presentation of information, making it difficult to mentally process and use

In the behavioral science field, these barriers are referred to as “cognitive overload” and “choice overload.”

• Cognitive overload happens when too much information is presented in a way that is hard to understand, making it difficult for people to process and apply the information.
• Choice overload happens when people are presented with too many choices at once, leading to potentially undesired outcomes—such as frustration and inaction.

Why It Matters: The Impacts of Cognitive and Choice Overload

Cognitive Overload: A tower of radios tuned to different channels creates noise without meaning.
Image credit: Dan Pope via Flickr Creative Commons

Insights from the Knowledge SUCCESS behavioral science research and co-creation workshops show that cognitive overload is a key barrier to FP/RH professionals using and applying the information they find to inform their programs. Program managers, technical advisors, and decision makers alike reported that they often face difficulties with applying the information they find, because:

• It lacks relevant “how to” information—or the relevant information is surrounded by irrelevant information;
• It is not contextualized or specific enough for their area of work, or
• It is packaged in a way that makes it difficult to understand and use—so it’s unclear how to apply it to program decision-making.

This means that FP/RH programs are not benefiting fully from the wealth of information and knowledge that the field has gained over decades of implementation of diverse programs.

Food choice overload in a market in Tunxi City, China.
Image credit: Ted McGrath via Flickr Creative Commons

In our co-creation workshops, FP/RH professionals reported that choice overload (for example, being faced with multiple and often scattered sources of information) leads to indecision and frustration. Many FP/RH professionals reported that, given so many choices, they felt unable to choose which lessons and experience to incorporate into their program activities for better impact. These feelings of frustration and overwhelm can lead to delaying a decision, making a poor decision, or even avoiding decision-making altogether.

What Can We Do About It?

Now that we have identified the problem of cognitive and choice overload, we can tailor new knowledge management solutions to address the problem. Key recommendations from our workshops include:

• Making information relevant: FP/RH professionals want to engage with information that is synthesized and relevant for their local programs. When sharing information, FP/RH programs should consider the applicability of that knowledge to people’s specific context. Ask yourself: Who can use these insights? Are there cultural considerations for programs to keep in mind? Let the answers drive how you present the information and where you share it.
• Acknowledging different learning styles: The presentation of information is key, especially in how it breaks down complex or lengthy content into bite-sized chunks. In our co-creation workshops, most professionals were found to have a visual or aural learning style, but learning styles differed greatly. Knowledge solutions that acknowledge different learning styles can appeal to more professionals, and help them get information in formats they find easier to absorb. For example, we recently launched a new podcast with FP2030, Inside the FP Story, to explore the details of family planning programming. The audio format of the podcast will appeal especially to those who prefer to digest information by listening to it. A written transcript is also available for those who want to read while listening.
• Centralizing information sources, when possible. Professionals across all regions expressed the challenges in searching for information from multiple sources. Having a go-to repository or database that categorizes different types of FP/RH information can ease the overload of choice that often makes the task of information search and sharing daunting. In June 2021, we will be launching FP insight, a new resource discovery platform that gives FP/RH professionals the tools they need to quickly and easily curate collections of information from across the web that are important to them.

We live in a globalized world with an abundance of information. This can be both thrilling and unnerving. Incorporating some of these key takeaways into how we sort and present information should reduce the pressures on our cognitive processes—and hopefully make our experiences with knowledge management more exciting than nerve-racking!