Finding something is the first step in decision making, but making a choice is the second step. Information architecture should help users not just to find things, but also to make the right choice. From findability to choosability. Because information becomes knowledge if it helps an agent to take a decision. The presentation covers the following topics: - the paradox of choice - why is it difficult to choose - the metaphor of pop out - the cost of the cognitive bottlenecks - how can we overcome the choice overload - the role of information architecture to increase the choosability

1. The pop-out effect: how to improve choice
through information architecture
Luca Rosati, Stefano Bussolon
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2. About Luca
Information architect and User experience designer - Independent
consultant
Founder of Architecta - Società italiana di architettura dell'informazione
Adjunct Professor - Università per Stranieri di Perugia
@lucarosati
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3. About Stefano
PhD in Cognitive Sciences
Freelance UX designer: Information Architecture, Interaction Design,
Usability
Adjunct Professor in Human Computer Interaction at the Università degli
Studi di Trento - Italy
@sweetdreamerit
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4. Summary
the paradox of choice
why is it difficult to choose
the metaphor of pop out
the cost of the cognitive bottlenecks
how can we overcome the choice overload
how can the information architects help to increase the choosability of a
set?
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5. The information architecture of choosability
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6. Too many options
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7. Information, decisions and knowledge
Finding is the first step in decision making (findability).
Making a choice is the second step (choosability).
Information becomes knowledge if it helps an agent to take a decision.
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8. The paradox of choice
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9. The experiment with the jams
6 flavors: 30% of sales
24 flavors: 3% of sales
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10. A recent research in the insurance market
How customers choose what insurance company and what product to
buy?
Three types of behaviours:
the extensive search approach
the limited search approach
the passive search approach
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11. The olympian rationality process
identify all the important attributes
assess a weight to every attribute
for every option, calculate the weighted sum
choose the option with the higher weighted sum
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12. Consequences of choice overload
Behavioural
choice deferral or avoidance
the likelihood of reversing an already made choice
Cognitive
lesser decision confidence
preference for smaller assortments
preference for an accountable choice
Emotional
decision regret (did I do the right choice?)
decreased choice satisfaction
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13. The pros of large assortments
higher likelihood to find a good options
positive perception of choice
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14. What makes the choice difficult?
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15. Contextual factors
time
accountability
number of attributes
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16. Choice set complexity
attractiveness of the choice options
the presence of a dominant option
feature complementarity
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17. Attractiveness
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18. Dominant option
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19. Complementarity
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20. The presentation format
ordering decreases search costs
greater satisfation when choosing from well organized sets
the mere classification effect
A good information architecture decreases the costs of choosing
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21. Individual factors
(Product) expertise: does the customer know enough about the important
attributes?
Preference (un)certainty: does the customer have clear preferences?
The customer knows what she wants (articulated ideal point)
The customer attitude to accept a tradeoff
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22. Articulated ideal point
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23. The customer accepts a tradeoff
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24. The customer's expertise
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25. The decisor intent
browsing: the cognitive goal of learning more about the available options
and/or their own preferences
shopping trip: the affective goal of deriving pleasure from the
exploration / evaluation process itself
choosing: the goal to make the choice
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26. The choice set
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27. The popout effect
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28. Task 1
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30. Task 2
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32. Task 3
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35. Systetm 1 vs system 2
fast vs slow
effortless vs effortfull
irrational vs rational
heuristic vs systematic
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36. Heuristics: a less effort approach
εὑρίσκω: to find
The goal of an heuristic is to improve the ratio between decision accuracy and
costs (time, memory, cognition, computation)
Ecological rationality
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42. Cognitive bottleneck and (dis)fluency
The effort is due to the use of limited cognitive resources, that don't function
in parallel (e.g. the executive functions).
The process becomes sequential (and therefore slow) and is prone to cognitive
fatigue.
A process becomes slow and effortfull if it requires the attentional focus and /
or the working memory system.
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43. Task: remember the pieces on the board
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44. Performance, a real game
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45. Performance, random positions
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46. How experts overcome the bottleneck
Non experts: only the working memory
Intermediates use the visual areas to see the patterns
Experts use also the long term memory to recognize the pattern
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47. The identification of chunks and templates
A chunk is a collection of elements having strong associations with one
another, and weak associations with elements of other chunks.
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51. Pop out the choice
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52. Strategies
let the patterns emerge
divide the task
distribute the effort
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53. Let the patterns emerge
Chunks and templates are the information architecture of the mind.
NeuroIA, or the polar brain.
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54. Divide et decide
browse: learn the domain, identify the attributes and the perferences
shortlist: identify a manageable list of preferred options
choice: identify the best option among the shortlist
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55. Distribute the effort
The olympian rationality process, revisited:
suggest the important attributes of the set
help the customer to define what is important for her
use the computational power of the database to do the hard work
let the application sort the options by value
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56. Conclusions
Choosing can be a difficult task.
Doing great information architecture can be a difficult task.
Great information architecture help the people to find out what they really
desire.
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58. Questions?
Please speek slowly, I'm Italian ;)
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59. Thank you
Stefano Bussolon
bussolon@gmail.com
@sweetdreamerit
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