Field Notice on Weight Option Confusion
Testimony regarding the moment of encountering a product that offers weight as a variable, and the cascade of decisions this produces in a person who did not expect to have this information.
AISLOP DAY HEARING COMMITTEE Transcript Excerpt, Session 54 Subject: Weight Option Confusion
CHAIR: The Committee is convened to take testimony on weight option confusion. The witness is recognized.
WITNESS: I was purchasing a bag. Not a specialty bag. A bag. And there was a dropdown that said "weight."
CHAIR: A dropdown.
WITNESS: Yes. With three options. Light, medium, and heavy. And I did not know what weight meant in the context of bags.
CHAIR: What did you do?
WITNESS: I hovered over the options for a while. Then I looked for a description of what the weights meant. There was no description.
CHAIR: None.
WITNESS: There was a help icon. I clicked the help icon. It took me to a general FAQ. The FAQ did not mention weight.
The Committee notes that weight option confusion is a documented feature of online purchasing across multiple product categories. The confusion arises from a mismatch between the information the vendor possesses and considers self-evident and the information the consumer possesses and considers necessary. The vendor knows what the weight options mean. The vendor does not explain them. The consumer does not know and cannot find out by available means.
Three consequences follow. First, the consumer spends time on a decision that the vendor considers trivial and the consumer cannot adequately make. The time spent is not proportionate to the significance of the decision, but the consumer cannot know the significance, which is part of the problem.
CHAIR: Did you eventually select an option?
WITNESS: Yes. I selected medium.
CHAIR: Why medium?
WITNESS: Because when I don't know what something means, I select the middle option. It seems like the least wrong choice.
CHAIR: Is it?
WITNESS: I don't know. The bag arrived. It seems fine. I have no reference point for what a light bag or a heavy bag would have felt like. I selected medium and the information about what I missed by not selecting the others was never made available to me.
CHAIR: Does this concern you?
WITNESS: Not anymore. It concerned me at the time, and then the bag arrived and it became a bag, and the weight option ceased to be a question I was thinking about. But I am aware, on some level, that I made a decision without adequate information, and that this is true of more decisions than I usually acknowledge.
CHAIR: That is a significant observation for a question about a bag.
WITNESS: The dropdown had three options. There was no description. I had to do something.
CHAIR: The Committee understands.
WITNESS: The bag is fine.
CHAIR: We noted that.
The Committee thanks the witness. The bag has not been mentioned since.