Try to memorize this phone number: 0919728025749. Finding it difficult? Now try again by breaking it into 3 parts: 091-97280-25749. Found it comparatively easier? George A. Miller, a psychologist, composed a law stating that an average human can hold 7±2 units of information in their working memory. This law is called Miller’s Law.
Miller’s Law guides designers and product managers to improve the usability of a product. When a user encounters information, they tend to break it down into meaningful smaller chunks to process the information more efficiently. Thus, a product manager should try to organise the content into smaller chunks to keep a lower cognitive load and make the users comprehend & memorize the information quickly.
Please Note: The working memory’s capacity might vary as per an individual’s prior knowledge. Eg: an expert user of Excel would remember more than 10 keyboard shortcut tricks.
Here are a few examples of how applying Miller's Law in a product improves usability.
#1 Payment (Razorpay)
Breaking the card’s number into 4 chunks aids in memorizing the card number and noting it down.
#2 E-commerce (Flipkart, Amazon)
Breaking the product’s information into chunks as bullet points helps in easy comprehension and memorability.
#3 Over-the-top (OTT) Platforms (Netflix, Hotstar, Prime Videos)
Chunking is also used to group similar products together to improve navigation.
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Resources to learn how to improve usability using psychology principles