A Comparison of Representations for Discrete Multi-Criteria Decision Problems

Publication Type

Journal contribution (peer reviewed)

Authors

Johannes Gettinger, Elmar Kiesling, Christian Stummer, Rudolf Vetschera

Year of publication

2013

Published in

Decision Support Systems

Pubisher

Elsevier

Band/Volume

54/2

DOI

10.1016/j.dss.2012.10.023

Page (from - to)

976-985

Keywords

Entscheidungsprozess, Entscheidungssysteme, Informationsmanagement, Kommunikationstechnologien

Discrete multi-criteria decision problems with numerous Pareto-efficient solution candidates place a significant cognitive burden on the decision maker. An interactive, aspiration-based search process that iteratively progresses toward the most preferred solution can alleviate this task. In this paper, we study three ways of representing such problems in a DSS, and compare them in a laboratory experiment using subjective and objective measures of the decision process as well as solution quality and problem understanding. In addition to an immediate user evaluation, we performed a re-evaluation several weeks later. Furthermore, we consider several levels of problem complexity and user characteristics. Results indicate that different problem representations have a considerable influence on search behavior, although long-term consistency appears to remain unaffected. We also found interesting discrepancies between subjective evaluations and objective measures. Conclusions from our experiments can help designers of DSS for large multi-criteria decision problems to fit problem representations to the goals of their system and the specific task at hand.