Why might it be silly to have a 2-step Wizard?

Question

In reference to 'Designing Interfaces' it's stated that it's silly to have a 2-step wizard. What are the reasons for this and is it really all that bad to have a 2-step wizard process?

In either case, the hard part of designing this kind of UI is striking a balance between the sizes of the chunks and the number of them. It’s silly to have a 2-step wizard, and a 15-step wizard is tedious. On the other hand, each chunk shouldn’t be overwhelmingly large, or you’ve lost some benefits of this pattern.

For my interface there is a 2 step process and I feel that in order to visualize that in a recognizable manner it would be best to use a wizard-like interface.

Would this really be silly?

Answer 1

I would have worded it as follows:

In either case, the hard part of designing this kind of UI is striking a balance between the sizes of the chunks and the number of them. For example, having a 2-step wizard usually loses the benefits of this pattern, and a 15-step wizard is tedious.

The concepts expressed are still valid, but of course there are exceptions to every rule. The important part is striking a balance between the sizes of the chunks and the number of them.

Have you considered progressive disclosure for your situation?

Answer 2

The page have 2011 year in footer - now we have 2020.

Today, processes are often divided into the maximum number of steps (however, of course - reasonably - 15 steps is far too much)

Maybe this suggestion is more about having> 2 steps in the process (minimum 3)

but let's consider personality tests - e.g. 16 personalities

Tests are divided into 10 stages - modern processes to reduce information overload also divide larger parts into a reasonable number of steps.

Answer 3

There is not a limit on wizard's steps but common sense, task length, user testing, etc.

Try some A/B testing.
Do users go through the flow easier with the wizard or without it?
Is it shorter / faster, or prevents errors, or it aids the user to gain better focus on the wizard version?

Answer 4

One thing to consider here is consistency. In isolation, from scratch, designing a system to use a two step wizard might lose some of the benefits of the pattern, but if the rest of your product uses a one page per action pattern, a two step wizard may be the best approach to ensure it feels coherent with the rest of the product.