DECISIONAL GUIDANCE - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 89

• Internet Security and Privacy: Web browsers, virus checkers, and firewalls typically allow
users to determine how strict the software should be in protecting against threats to security
and privacy. Since increased vigilance in protecting against possible attacks can limit or
interfere with useful functionality, setting the levels of security and privacy is a discretionary
task requiring users to balance potential benefits and risks. Given the many complex options
these programs generally offer, decisional guidance could help users arrive at the appropri-
ate settings given their desired levels of risk and the functionality they need.
• B-to-C E-Commerce: Consumers confront numerous choices when purchasing goods online,
including what to buy (brand, model, size, color, and so forth), where to buy it, how to ship
it, and what extras (options, accessories, and warranties) to purchase. Decisional guidance
could play a role in informing, swaying, or even directing these various choices. For
instance, many Web sites currently provide features that either help users choose appropriate
options and accessories or encourage users to add on extra options and accessories. But
richer guidance mechanisms could be offered.
Having seen several examples of the broadened applicability of the revised definition, it is now
time to revisit the typology of deliberate decisional guidance. Examining the typology's intended
role may be useful before attempting to revise it. For system designers, the typology is a struc-
tured way to think of their options when creating guidance. Each dimension represents a design
choice. For researchers, the typology implicitly identifies a set of research questions. Each ele-
ment of the typology (for instance, suggestive guidance), or combination of elements (predefined
on-demand suggestive guidance for structuring the process), needs to be studied to understand the
consequences of this kind of guidance. And comparisons within a dimension (on-demand versus
automatic guidance or suggestive versus informative guidance) present another set of research-
able issues. The typology facilitates more focused studies that have greater hopes of being com-
pared with other, equally focused studies, thus enabling more meaningful generalizations and
broader conclusions. And, of course, these research activities in turn provide value to practition-
ers employing the typology.
So the challenge is to develop a set of dimensions that identify significant differences in the
types of deliberate decisional guidance. Given how different guidance mechanisms can be—as
seen in the small set of existing studies—we would like the cells of the typology to be relatively
small, to allow for greater homogeneity. But we cannot have so many cells that the typology over-
whelms researchers and practitioners alike. With this in mind, let us turn now to the elements of
the revised typology (Table 6.6).
Guidance Targets: Choosing Versus Using Functional Capabilities
The original definitions of structuring the decision-making process and executing it worked well
in classifying the empirical studies of guidance. The labels, however, need to be refined so that the
dimension can be applied to systems other than DSS. Guidance for structuring the process in the
new typology is therefore referred to as “guidance for choosing functional capabilities” and guid-
ance for executing the process is called “guidance while using functional capabilities.” Guidance
for choosing the function is not part of the function itself; it is part of the broader system that facil-
itates choosing among functions. Guidance while using the function is embedded in the function
and comes into play only once the function has been invoked. Note that both types of guidance
address how users exercise the discretion the system affords them; the difference is whether the
discretion is in choosing functions or in using those functions.