An experimental investigation of the interaction between displays and models in multicriteria decision support

An experiment in multicriteria decision support was conducted that examined two types of information displays, two different multiattribute models and two levels of task complexity in a laboratory setting with students as subjects. The findings focused on the ‘process’ behaviour and the ‘design’ elements of the human-machine interface. Findings concerning the process behaviour suggested that the subjects’ actions on data acquisition were guided by their cognitive preference for the attributes, but that the subjects had no discernible search pattern for evaluation. Findings for design included a significant interaction between display and model in weight estimation and assessment. The practical implications for software design are also discussed.