Your product page is exhausting (and your customers are tired)

Here's something nobody wants to admit:

Your customers are lazy.

Not in a moral sense. In a cognitive sense. Their brains are actively looking for ways to conserve energy, avoid effort, and take shortcuts whenever possible.

This isn't a character flaw. This is survival wiring that's kept humans alive for thousands of years.

Your brain is an energy hog. It uses about 20% of your body's total energy despite being only 2% of your body weight. So evolution made it really, really good at being efficient. Which means avoiding hard thinking whenever possible.

This is why your customers will:

• Abandon a cart over one confusing form field

• Leave a product page with too many options

• Bounce from a homepage with unclear navigation

• Skip reading your carefully crafted value proposition if it's buried in a wall of text

They're not being difficult. Their brains are being efficient.

And if your site makes their brain work too hard, their brain will simply leave.

Cognitive load: The invisible conversion killer

Cognitive load is the amount of mental effort required to process information and make decisions.

Think of it like RAM on a computer. You only have so much available. Load too many programs (or in our case, decisions), and everything slows down or crashes.

Every element on your product page is using cognitive resources:

• Reading headlines and copy: cognitive load

• Processing images and videos: cognitive load

• Understanding navigation: cognitive load

• Comparing options: cognitive load

• Filling out forms: cognitive load

• Deciding between variants: cognitive load

• Calculating if this is a good deal: cognitive load

• Comparing other brands: cognitive load

By the time your customer gets to "Add to Cart," they might be mentally exhausted from all the micro-decisions you've asked them to make.

This is especially brutal because of how the brain works. Remember System 1 and System 2 thinking?

System 1 (fast, automatic, effortless) handles most of your browsing. It's pattern recognition, gut feelings, snap judgments. It uses very little energy.

System 2 (slow, deliberate, effortful) handles complex thinking, calculations, and decisions. It's exhausting to use.

Every time you force customers to use System 2, you're asking them to spend mental energy. And they have a limited supply.

Most people can handle 3-4 System 2 decisions before they start looking for the exit.

The paradox of choice (or why your 47 variants are killing sales)

Barry Schwartz documented this phenomenon: More choice doesn't equal more sales. Past a certain point, more choice equals fewer sales.

Here's why: Each additional option requires a decision. Each decision depletes cognitive resources. Each depletion makes the next decision harder.

By the time your customer has:

• Chosen between 8 colors

• Debated among 3 sizes

• Picked from 4 material options

• Decided on a monogram (yes or no)

• Chosen between standard or express shipping

...their brain is screaming "THIS IS TOO HARD" and they're gone.

This doesn't mean you should eliminate options entirely. It means you need to reduce the perceived complexity of choosing.

The difference is massive:

High cognitive load approach: "Select your size: XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL" "Select your color: Black, Navy, Charcoal, Slate, Graphite, Onyx, Midnight" "Select your length: Short, Regular, Long" "Select your fit: Slim, Modern, Relaxed, Tall"

That's 4 decisions with 26 total combinations. Your customer's brain just entered full System 2 mode and is calculating if this is worth the effort.

Lower cognitive load approach: "Most popular: Medium, Black, Regular length" (pre-selected) With an option to customize if needed.

Same number of variants available. Dramatically less mental effort required. The path of least resistance is now buying, not leaving.

The three types of cognitive load killing your conversions

1. Visual cognitive load Too much happening at once. Competing calls-to-action. Unclear hierarchy. Poor contrast. Cluttered layouts.

Your customer's System 1 can't quickly process what matters, so it forces System 2 to wake up and figure it out. System 2 is grumpy about being woken up and just leaves instead.

What it looks like:

• 5 different CTAs above the fold, all screaming for attention

• Product images competing with popup banners competing with promo bars

• No clear visual hierarchy telling the eye where to look first

• Information scattered everywhere with no logical flow

2. Linguistic cognitive load Dense paragraphs. Industry jargon. Unclear value propositions. Reading-level mismatches.

Every extra word, every unclear sentence, every paragraph that should have been bullets, that's all cognitive load piling up.

Chip Heath nailed it: "When you say three things, you say nothing."

What it looks like:

• Walls of text instead of scannable bullets

• Vague marketing speak: "innovative," "premium," "revolutionary"

• Features listed without explaining benefits

• Technical specs without context for what they mean

3. Decision cognitive load Too many choices. Unclear differences between options. No smart defaults. Complex configuration processes.

This is the killer for ecommerce. Every decision point is friction. Every "which one should I pick?" moment is an opportunity to lose the sale.

What it looks like:

• 12 product variants with unclear differences

• No "most popular" or "recommended for you" guidance

• Forcing decisions on things customers don't care about

• Multi-step configuration processes without clear next steps

The mental accounting trap

Here's another cognitive load killer: making customers do math.

Your brain hates math. Even simple math. It requires System 2, and System 2 would rather not.

This is why:

• "Save $20" feels better than "Save 15%" when the price is $133.33

• "Save 50%" feels better than "Save $5" when the price is $10

• Showing the math ("Was $100, now $75") performs better than just showing the sale price

It's also why:

• Making customers calculate total cost (product + shipping + tax) kills conversion

• Unclear pricing with "starting from" language creates anxiety

• Complex tiered discounts ("Buy 2 save 15%, buy 3 save 25%") make people abandon

Every time you make customers calculate something, you're asking System 2 to wake up and work. And if the math is even slightly confusing, they'll just leave rather than figure it out.

What to do Monday morning

The 5-Second Scan Test: Pull up your best-selling product page. Set a timer for 5 seconds. Look at it. Look away.

What did you remember? What was clear? What was confusing?

If you can't figure out what the product is, what it costs, and what to do next in 5 seconds, your cognitive load is too high.

The Choice Audit: Count how many decisions your customer has to make before clicking "Add to Cart."

Each dropdown, each variant selection, each radio button, each "would you like to add..." question, that's a decision.

If you're over 3 decisions, you're probably losing people. Look for ways to reduce or pre-select options.

The Text-to-Bullets Test: Find every paragraph on your product page. Ask: "Could this be bullets instead?"

If yes, make it bullets. If no, put it in an expandable section.

Your goal: Make every piece of content scannable. Let customers choose their depth of engagement.

The Math Test: Look for anywhere customers have to calculate something:

• Total price with shipping

• Savings percentages

• Size conversions

• Quantity discounts

• Price per weight (e.g., $2.35/oz)

• Price per serving

Do the math for them. Show the result, not the equation.

The Default Test: For every choice you're forcing customers to make, ask: "What would most customers pick?"

Then make that the default. Let them change it if needed, but don't make them start from scratch every time.

The cognitive load hierarchy

Not all cognitive load is equal. Some is necessary (understanding what you're buying). Some is wasteful (fighting through bad design to find basic information).

Necessary cognitive load (keep this):

• Understanding product benefits

• Evaluating if this solves their problem

• Deciding if price matches perceived value

Wasteful cognitive load (eliminate this):

• Unclear navigation forcing hunting for information

• Dense text walls forcing effort to extract key points

• Unclear differentiation between options

• Confusing pricing or shipping calculations

• Unnecessary form fields

• Competing visual elements creating chaos

Your job isn't to eliminate all thinking. It's to eliminate all unnecessary thinking.

Make the important decisions easy. Make the unimportant decisions automatic.

The brands winning on conversion aren't the ones with the most information or the most options.

They're the ones that make buying feel effortless.

Next week: Why "more options" is killing your conversion rate; a deep dive into choice architecture and smart defaults.

Until then, stop making your customers work so hard. Their brains will thank you with conversions.

Looking forward,

Brian

P.S. Count how many decisions you're forcing on your product page. If it's more than 3, you're probably hemorrhaging customers. Hit reply if you want to talk through what to cut. Or, feel free to schedule a call.