The Effects of Decision Aid Structural Restrictiveness on Decision-Making Outcomes

This study examines whether decision aid structural restrictiveness affects users' decision-making outcomes. Structural restrictiveness refers to the rules embedded within computerized decision aids that restrict how users interact with the aid. A more restrictive design imposes more limits on a user's decision-making process by forcing users to adapt their decision-making process to match the decision aid. The purpose of this study is to examine whether restricting how users interact with computerized decision aids affects their decision-making outcomes. I conducted an experiment by varying the differential effect of both a more restrictive and less restrictive decision aid on users' decision-making outcomes. The results indicate that the more restrictive decision aid impairs users' decision-making process by increasing their decision-making bias through reducing their ability to identify items that are not specifically identified by the aid. This study shows that the degree of restrictiveness is an important aspect of the design of decision aids and has implications for both future research and practice.