Do you take into account the hidden cost when making decisions? It’s one of those areas where I used to fail miserably. I’ve learned to take it into account over the last couple years, but only recently was able to formulate the concept properly.

The idea goes something like this: Behind most obvious decisions is a non-obvious hidden cost, which can often outweigh the benefit of the “obvious” decision.

…if an engineer had designed the drive-through, you would probably have to pay before they started making your food. Impossible to game, flaw destroyed. The problem is, what’s the cost of the extra time involved in waiting until you receive payment before you start making the food? And what’s the cost per meal wasted times the number of times that the customer is not able to pay? There’s a reason they start making your food right away: It saves a ton of time, and people are able to pay most of the time.

Seems obvious, right? Then why do we still insist on requiring two password fields, one for verification? Or two email fields? Sure, a banking application might require this… but your average web app? You could look at it this way: What’s the chance that someone will mistype both their email AND password, weighed against the drop-off in signups because of the extra form fields. You will drop a significant number of sign-ups with the added fields, but there will be a very small percentage of people who get both their email and password wrong.