The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, image 1 of 11 / 1
Item

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

in Stuff I Keep Rereading by Diego Navarro

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two on “Stuff I Keep Rereading”, a list by Diego Navarro on TheLysts.

Details

Photo
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Name
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Field
Cognitive psychology
Year
1956
Author(s)
George A. Miller
Core idea
Working memory has a limited capacity (around 7 ±2 chunks), which constrains how much information people can process at once.
Why I care
Whenever a settings page starts looking like a CVS receipt, I think of this and start deleting options like I’m over the salary cap.
Great for
Navigation design, form design, and deciding how many choices to put on a screen before users mentally bail.
Key concept to Google
Chunking in short‑term memory
Difficulty
Low—surprisingly fun read for something older than my parents’ first car.