DECISIONAL GUIDANCE - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 77

Table 6.2

Examples of Deliberate Decisional Guidance

Form of Guidance
Suggestive Guidance Informative Guidance

Recommended operator Description/Analysis of operators

Set of recommended operators Comparison of operators

Ordered list of recommended operators Map of relationships among operators

Set of operators not recommended Record of behavior in similar contexts

History of activity this session

Recommended values Description of required input values

Descriptions of how inputs will be used

Set of recommended values

Tables, graphs, or analyses of data

Ordered list of recommended values

Record of behavior in similar contexts

Set of values not recommended

History of activity this session

Source: Originally published in Silver, M.S. Decisional guidance for computer-based decision support. MIS
Quarterly , 15, 1 (1991), 113. Copyright © 1991, Regents of the University of Minnesota. Reprinted by permission.

REVIEWING THE BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH ON
DELIBERATE DECISIONAL GUIDANCE

Not surprisingly, most empirical studies of guidance have been in the domain of individual deci-
sion support. Behavioral studies have also applied the concept to group support and support for
conceptual data modeling. Table 6.3 summarizes the most prominent empirical work on deci-
sional guidance, and Figure 6.1 shows the studies organized by target and form of guidance. In
selecting studies, only empirical studies of user behavior that explicitly refer to decisional guid-
ance were included. Studies that focused on other system features that might be renamed or
reframed as decisional guidance were not included.
What can be learned from these studies? While a number of specific empirical findings are
reported that shed light on the effects of decisional guidance, these studies collectively teach us
that the definition of decisional guidance and the typology of deliberate decisional guidance
require clarification and modification. Because the studies differ in how they interpret the defini-
tion and operationalize the typology, we must be careful to construe the findings of each study in
light of its own interpretation of decisional guidance. In particular, great care must be taken in
attempting to generalize from the studies or to make comparisons across them. The foremost