Decisional Guidance for Computer-Based Decision Support1

Abstract

In the course of interacting with a decision support system (DSS), decision makers may have numerous opportunities for exercising judgment. Some judgments pertain to what to do next; others require predictions or evaluations. Either deliberately or inadvertently, a DSS may guide its users in performing these judgments. This article lays a foundation and proposes an agenda for researching such “decisional guidance. ” Studying decisional guidance matters for two reasons. First, deliberately incorporating guidance in a system offers the potential of more supportive systems while raising a number of design questions. Second, understanding the consequences of guidance—deliberate or not— contributes to comprehending how DSSs affect decision-making behavior. This article examines three aspects of decisional guidance: (1) when and why system designers should provide decisional guidance, considering the opportunities, motives, and means for guiding; (2) how designers can provide guidance, introducing a three-dimensional typology for deliberate guidance; and (3) the consequences of decisional guidance—that is, its effects and effectiveness. This article provides a coherent approach to a set of behavioral questions just now beginning to be addressed by researchers in a fragmented, technologically oriented manner.