Experimental evaluation of a graphical display system to visualizing multiple criteria solutions

One of the major limitations of multiple criteria techniques is the poor set of mechanisms available for evaluating alternatives/solutions. Simply listing the alternatives, in most cases, is not satisfactory. Alternative solutions must be communicated to the decision maker in a clear and concise manner that makes it easy for the decision maker to explore and evaluate their respective tradeoffs. This paper describes a graphical display system (GRADS) that presents multiobjective solutions. GRADS allows the decision maker to explore the tradeoffs between objectives from a given set of finite alternative solutions. The paper presents the results of an experiment that tested the usefulness of GRADS in the problem-solving process. Additionally, a relatively new statistic called Hildebrand’s del is used to provide further insight into the experiment’s results.