ABSTRACT
For years, attempts to support military decision making (e.g. providing training or software tools) have been met with limited success. Three fundamental reasons are believed to explain past failures. Firstly, the support has been inadequately scoped, being either too specific (only working for one type of person in one type of environment), or too general (not addressing specific problems). Secondly, support has been developed to overcome problems based on incorrect assumptions about the way people make decisions and why they err. Thirdly, techniques for identifying decision support requirements have focused on either asking what the user wants (i.e. elicit users perception of needs), or analysing user tasks at a functional (not cognitive) level. In response to this, DERA is researching factors affecting decision making; relationships between decision making and decision support, and effective methods for generating support requirements. The ongoing product of this research is a set of guidelines for designing and evaluating decision support solutions called DECADE (decision aid design/evaluation).
