Facilitating the Usage of Decision Strategies by Interactive Decision Aids: A Conceptual Analysis

Internet shops like amazon.com or activeshopper.com enable customers to compare a large amount of products (e.g., digital camera) and product properties (e.g., price) in form of a comparison matrix. For choosing the preferred product from a comparison matrix, customers apply decision strategies. Riedl et al. (2008), for example, summarize and define thirteen important decision strategies (Behavior Research Methods, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 795-807). The application of most of these strategies can be facilitated by interactive decision aids like (i) sorting of products, (ii) a conditional drop function, or (iii) performing pairwise comparisons between products (see examples below). This research studies the relationship between decision strategies and the proper interactive decision aid(s). In particular, it addresses the following research question: Which type of interactive decision aid is necessary to support the application of specific decision strategies? The provision of decision aids is important, because they may reduce the effort to apply a particular strategy and/or increase decision accuracy. Based on our conceptual analysis, web designers can tailor systems that offer those decision aids that fit best to their customers’ decision strategy, thereby facilitating decision processes.