Media: HFI talks Decision-making

Kath Straub and Cathy Gaddy ask the question – can thoughtful information design help users make better consumer choices? Then they show that it can, giving some consumer psychology and citing a recent study of different design choices and the impact it has on the quality of decision making.

Then Eric Schaffer, the Pragmatic Ergonomist comes in: 'We actually don't design eCommerce sites for good and rational decisions by consumers. We design them for PROFIT. Therefore we can benefit from the tendency for non-compensatory decision making. Putting the high margin choices first is a simple but lucrative example. We might even make the comparison difficult to favor the higher margin choices.'

Associated Link: HFI: Decisions, decisions... What's a poor user (and designer) to do?

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