Optimizing vs Satisficing: Tips for Product Design and Designing Your Life
I love to optimize my choices and find the best thing in a particular category. Whether it is powertools, apps, restaurants, or a spatula, I love knowing what the best one is. In fact, a lot of times I probably love it a little too much. You might think I was kidding about the spatula, but I just spent an hour online finding the best spatula (in case you are wondering, the answer is a fish spatula). Sites like The Wirecutter, and Consumer Reports are my go to tools where I can see their test procedures. If I’m being honest, they probably take up a little too much of my time, because when it comes down to it there are usually a few choices that will make equally as happy.
This is where optimizing and satisficing come in. With many of us reflecting on what we want out of the coming year, this has application for both product design and your life.
What is the difference between satisficing and optimizing?
Optimization is defined as the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource. It is all about getting the absolute best, even if it is only 0.01% better.
Satisficing was first introduced by Herbert Simon in 1956 [1]. It is a combination of “satisfy” and “suffice.” The idea is that you make a choice that is good enough. You don’t have to take the extra time to find the best choice. Sometimes when there are a number of good choices, the best choice is only slightly better than the other good choices.
Let’s look at a choice we make all the time: picking the right checkout line at the store. I could spend some time and analyze the number of items scanned per minute by each available cashier, or I could take a look and just pick one. It would be quick, sure I might make a sub optimal choice, but even the sub optimal choice will only cost me a minute or two. Any of the choices are good enough in this case.
How does this apply to design?
In the products we design, there are hundreds or even thousands of choices to be made. If we took the time to optimize each and every choice very few products would ever come to market. Does this mean we should never optimize, and always satisfice? Definitely not. The key is to determine which choices are important enough to optimize and which ones you can pick something that is good enough. Something like selecting the right screw or bolt will often have many good enough choices. You can look through a catalog like McMaster-Carr, filter down your options based on a few criteria, and make a choice within a few minutes. Now if you were designing something like the battery casing on a new electric aircraft where every ounce is important, you would probably spend a lot more time finding the optimal design.
This has also been called the difference between mundane and vital decisions in design by Mattson and Sorensen [2]. This is how they explain it:
“Not all decisions are created equal. There are a few decisions (approximately 10-20%) that will have a strong influence on how well the design meets the market needs. These decisions, called the vital few, will take 80-90% of the design time. Because these are so crucial, they require an optimal solution, rather than just any solution. Therefore, they should be made with the best possible design and decision-making practices. For example if you are designing an automatic transmission for a car, the gear ratios in the transmission are likely to be part of the vital few.
Most of the decisions (approximately 80-90%) have relatively minor influence on how well the design meets the customer needs. We call these needs the mundane many. Because they have a small influence they don’t need to be optimal; satisfactory is good enough. The goal in making these decisions is to spend as little time as possible to develop an acceptable solution. In transmission design, the bolts holding the casing together are likely to be part of the mundane many.”
It will be very important in your design work to decide which choices need optimizing and which ones need satisficing.
How can you apply this to your life?
Spend time to make plans for yourself that are good enough. Craft habits that will make you a little better rather than going for the optimal plan, after all, your life plans have a lot of uncertainty.
It may sound counterintuitive, but satisficing is also how you can become the best in the world at something. This is done by satisficing a number of skills rather than optimizing for one skill. Tomas Pueyo calls this skill stacking [3]. It is really hard to become the best in the world at a single skill. Just look at how many people actually make it to be in the NFL or NBA, and even among those that make it professionally, only a few are superstars. By using the principles of satisficing you can become proficient at a number of skills that can be combined together in unique ways. As you do that, you will carve out a niche for yourself, where you are the best in the world, and when people need something in that niche, they will come to you.
Jimmy Chin speaking at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability
For example, look at the climber, photographer and filmmaker Jimmy Chin. Chin is known for his work as a National Geographic photographer, The North Face athlete, and award-winning films The Rescue and Free Solo. He is not the best photographer or filmmaker in the world — yes he is very good, but probably not the best. Chin has combined his photo and video skills with climbing and mountaineering. Again he is a good climber and mountaineer but not the best. By becoming good, or more accurately excellent, at both areas he has become one of the go to people in the world to document climbing and mountaineering expeditions. He is the best in the world in his niche.
The choice between optimizing and satisficing different choices or parts of your life can have a big impact. I believe the key is to take a moment to understand when each one is more appropriate to achieve your desired outcomes with the resources you have.
References
Simon, Herbert A. "Rational choice and the structure of the environment." Psychological review 63.2 (1956): 129.
Mattson, Christopher A., and Carl D. Sorensen. Product Development: Principles and Tools for Creating Desirable and Transferable Designs. Springer Nature, 2019.
Pueyo Tomas, “How to Become the best in the World at Something,” Forge, 2019
