Side effects of decision guidance in decision support systems

Ideal Decision Support Systems (DSS) provide aid in the attainment of a solution to a particular problem of the user. However, during system interaction, the dialogue design of the DSS has the potential tea influence the outcome of the solution. This side effect may or may not be desirable, but system designers must be aware of the potential impact. a laboratory study described in this report examines the significance of the impact. a total of 46 subjects conducted decisions on forecasting methods under two different design structures for DSS interfaces. An increase in guidance provided by the system led to a significant change in the decision model selected. This change in model selected resulted in a number of different solutions to the study's forecasting problem. In application settings, such impacts need to be evaluated prior to implementation to avoid the situations where the software influences the decision process. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.