The Cost of Cognitive Load
Cognitive load does not announce itself with error messages. It just makes your visitor feel tired. And tired visitors leave.
Nobody says "this site has too much cognitive load." They just close the tab. Cognitive load is the invisible tax on every decision your visitor has to make — and every unnecessary element on your page increases it.
Three Types of Cognitive Load
- Intrinsic load — The inherent complexity of the task. Buying enterprise software is more complex than buying a book. You cannot eliminate this.
- Extraneous load — The unnecessary complexity your design adds. Competing navigation, unclear labels, decorative elements that serve no function. You can and must eliminate this.
- Germane load — The productive mental effort of understanding and learning. Good design supports this — progressive disclosure, clear hierarchy, contextual help.
Your job: eliminate extraneous load, support germane load. That is the entire discipline of UX in one sentence.
The One-CTA-Per-Viewport Rule
We enforce one CTA per viewport. Not one "primary" with a secondary fallback. One. This forces every section to have a singular purpose — and it forces the design to earn the next scroll instead of hedging with options. When you cannot add a second button, you have to get the first one right.
Simplification is not removing things. It is the discipline of showing only what matters at the moment it matters. Everything else is tax.