That's an excellent point, which I will take a step further: It has to provide something that people truly want, and the acceptable cognitive load is a function of the pleasure derived from having that desire fulfilled.
The pleasure payoff must be higher than the pain inflicted (so to speak). Just because people want something, it doesn't mean they are truly willing to put in the required effort to get it. As the average pain tolerance of the mass market is low, the payoff must be very high (communication with loved ones, financial well-being, major time savings) for a high pain point (cognitive load in this case) to be endured.
It is helpful to identify if there are multiple types of users, each with different goals and pain points. If that is the case, it is optimal to only expose users to the cognitive load necessary for the tasks they are interested in. For example, there could be anonymous browsers, participants, authors, and moderators. In that case, the cognitive load for casual browsers should be as low as possible, since they have the least benefit and buy-in. As with graceful degradation for less capable web browser software, apps should degrade gracefully for users with less capability or interest in using the additional features which require a higher cognitive load.
With regards to Shazam, I disagree that it would have been as successful if the interface was more complicated. Sure people would still have used it, but if it was harder to figure out or required more steps or had a 15 minute delay before it emailed you the answer, usage would have been far lower.
Sorry if this all sounds like a cognitive load of shit. Hopefully I have communicated it clearly, but I suspect I may have exceeded the pain threshold a while ago.
The pleasure payoff must be higher than the pain inflicted (so to speak). Just because people want something, it doesn't mean they are truly willing to put in the required effort to get it. As the average pain tolerance of the mass market is low, the payoff must be very high (communication with loved ones, financial well-being, major time savings) for a high pain point (cognitive load in this case) to be endured.
It is helpful to identify if there are multiple types of users, each with different goals and pain points. If that is the case, it is optimal to only expose users to the cognitive load necessary for the tasks they are interested in. For example, there could be anonymous browsers, participants, authors, and moderators. In that case, the cognitive load for casual browsers should be as low as possible, since they have the least benefit and buy-in. As with graceful degradation for less capable web browser software, apps should degrade gracefully for users with less capability or interest in using the additional features which require a higher cognitive load.
With regards to Shazam, I disagree that it would have been as successful if the interface was more complicated. Sure people would still have used it, but if it was harder to figure out or required more steps or had a 15 minute delay before it emailed you the answer, usage would have been far lower.
Sorry if this all sounds like a cognitive load of shit. Hopefully I have communicated it clearly, but I suspect I may have exceeded the pain threshold a while ago.