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A pilot study on interactive decision trees

Hortensius, R. (2016) A pilot study on interactive decision trees.

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Abstract:The Dutch share of the company, Wolters Kluwer Nederland B.V, makes use of an online information portal called Navigator to provide information and functionality to primarily law and tax professionals. The company is focussed on digitizing information and believes publishing a book online is not the same as being an online publisher. A new customer need was identified to provide users with practical content that helps the user get to the right information efficiently. The company’s attention was drawn to a solution called interactive decision trees. A pilot study is performed to identify what is needed to incorporate interactive decision trees in the Navigator and how the decision trees can be visually presented to the user. The identified customer needs include the ability to find the trees and favourite the trees in the Navigator. It should be possible to print the interactive decision tree and to save it to the computer. The user wants to be able to go back to previous answers and be able to change the answers. Design principles defined based on a broad analysis of interactive decision trees include guidelines about the overview, progress indication, consistency, scalability, accessible for everyone, flexibility and attention. Ideas and concepts are generated and tested with users in a user test. The perspective of an author, publisher and manager is also gathered. The result of this test phase is recommendations for the final visual design of an interactive decision tree page in the Navigator based on the earlier defined design principles. The most important recommendations include show all the answers of previous questions, incorporate a categorisation of the questions, integrate the trees in the Navigator, add an elaborated explanation (in-text or in a separate window) and the recommended elements to include on the first page are a title, a short description and the first question. The implementation plan is about aspects to think of when integrating interactive decision trees in the Navigator. First the real need of the customer need and the result of a decision tree should be defined. For the business perspective outsource options should be investigated and data control needs to be assigned. An input environment needs to be created for the author and a template for writing interactive decision trees is recommended. The authors need to be prepared for this different way of writing. Also important is the terminology used in both the title as the content of the decision tree. The new functionality ‘decision trees’ should be communicated to the user and it is important to make sure the user trusts the system. The user is interested in this new functionality meaning further research and detailed plans, continuing on the information presented in this report, should be carried out to start the process of integrating interactive decision trees in the Navigator.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:20 art studies
Programme:Industrial Design BSc (56955)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71123
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