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Table 6.1
The Original Deliberate Decisional Guidance Typology
Targets (which aspects of decision making the guidance addresses)
•
Structuring the decision-making process (choosing functional capabilities)
•
Executing the decision-making process (using functional capabilities)
Forms (what the guidance offers decision makers)
•
Suggestive guidance
•
Informative guidance
Modes (how the guidance mechanism works)
•
Predefined
•
Dynamic
•
Participative
Scope (how much of the process is affected)
•
Short range
•
Long range
Source:
Silver (1991b).
effects and practitioners are to design better systems. In fact, one reason for building deliberate guid-
ance into a system is to preempt any unintended design consequences. Notwithstanding the impor-
tance of studying both types of decisional guidance, this paper focuses on the deliberate variety.
My previous work on decisional guidance in the DSS context consisted of a definition, a discus-
sion of various issues, a typology for deliberate decisional guidance, and a large set of questions that
we need to answer. This paper begins by first reviewing the original typology. Then it reviews the
most prominent empirical studies of the effects of decisional guidance, focusing more on the issues
the studies raise than on specific findings. These issues are then analyzed more fully to produce a
revised and broadened definition and typology. The paper concludes with an agenda for research.
Because this paper focuses on revising and broadening the treatment of decisional guidance, it
omits some of the ideas and much of the depth—especially in the realm of DSS—contained in the
original works on this subject (Silver, 1991a, 1991b, 1990). These sources are recommended to
the reader planning to work in the decisional guidance arena.
THE DIMENSIONS OF DELIBERATE DECISIONAL GUIDANCE: A TYPOLOGY
Deliberate decisional guidance—hereafter referred to simply as decisional guidance—is an
umbrella term covering a wide array of system features that guide users. Silver (1991b) identified
a four-dimensional typology for categorizing decisional guidance (Table 6.1). Reviewing the four
dimensions is a prerequisite for examining the literature.
Targets: Structuring Versus Executing the Process
Deliberate decisional guidance targets the discretionary opportunities users encounter when work-
ing with a system. In general, people using a system make choices at two levels: (1) they choose which
activity to perform (which functional capabilities to invoke) and (2) they make choices while engag-
ing in a given activity (while interacting with the given function's features). Each level of choice rep-
resents a potential target for decisional guidance. When the system is a DSS, the first level is often
called
structuring
or formulating the decision-making process. It involves “selecting a problem
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