The Water Jug

I've been writing the copy for my LinkedIn extension, Earlybird, and I keep catching myself trying to squeeze every feature onto the page.

I built it for myself first, so I know every feature by heart. The viral feed, consistency map, streaks, analytics, follower tracking. Every one of them solves a real problem for me, and every one of them feels like it deserves a spot.

So my instinct is to fit them all in.

The logic feels airtight. More features means more reasons for people to use it. Cast the net wide and you'll catch more fish.

Except a reader's head works like a water jug.

It holds a certain amount. The first idea pours in cleanly. The second one fits. By the third, it's pretty much full. Beyond that, the ideas are spilling onto the floor and you don't get to choose which ones.

Most readers are on their phones, half paying attention. To me, the website looks like a persuasive list of reasons. To them, it's a list of things to think about.

The generous move is to do that thinking for them. Pick the one thing that makes someone lean in, pour that in, and stop. The rest of the features are still there inside the product, waiting for people who've already said yes.

For Earlybird, that's spotting posts before they take off, so you can comment first and get seen by everyone who reads it after you. That's the one thing I want people to walk away with.

This is harder than it sounds. Cutting features from the copy feels like cutting them from the product. It feels like I'm underselling months of work.

But the reader was never going to carry all of it anyway.

I'm learning to stop pouring before the jug is full.

3 things that made me write this

1. The jam study. In 1995, Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper set up a tasting table in a California grocery store. When it had 24 jams, 60% of shoppers stopped. When it had 6, only 40% stopped. But 30% of the people at the small table bought a jar, compared with 3% at the big one. More on the table got attention. Less on the table got sales.
2. The first iPod in 2001. It had a 5GB hard drive, FireWire, a 10 hour battery and a scroll wheel. Apple sold it as 1,000 songs in your pocket. One idea. Everybody got it instantly.
3. In 1956, psychologist George Miller said we can hold about seven things in our heads at once. In 2001, Nelson Cowan revisited the research and put the real number closer to four. The water jug is smaller than we think.