The Elements of Choice (Architecture) by Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson's new book is about choice architecture, and how when choices are presented in a confusing way, we may make bad decisions.

The Elements of Choice. WHY THE WAY WE DECIDE MATTERS  By ERIC J. JOHNSON

One of the points the book makes is that having too many choices may impede the quality of your decision: you might do better if the choice architect had narrowed or better organized your choice set to make it easier for you to fluently understand the choices presented, which would enable you to make a more accurate decision.

Here is a picture of the first search result that appeared when I searched for the book, which I surmise is an ad composed by the publisher:

I read with interest his discussion of school choice, in which he argues that much of the potential welfare improvement produced by market design could potentially be undone by confused decision making by participants, and that welfare could be improved if market designers did a better job of actively curating and organizing the choices offered.

He writes "Increasing the number of options increases the probability that families will be presented with the best school for them, but it does not mean they will see it."

Some of his recommendations suggest that market designers should get involved at all level of detail: e.g. easier to read fonts may increase fluency and allow more choices to be presented effectively.

Others of his recommendations seem to me to be further removed from the actual practice of school choice: e.g. "If we can remove any terrible schools from the set, choosers, even if they were picking randomly, would on average get better outcomes." Closing underperforming schools (e.g. by not admitting new students) is much more complicated than that.

I haven't finished reading the book yet (Eric pointed me first to the section on school choice), and I'm looking forward to it.  Choice architecture is certainly an important part of market design.