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I built a popular tool in the same niche [1]. I think your over complicating it. I got decision fatigue just trying to test it. [1] https://easydecisionmaker.com/
Here are some things I believe you could improve about the implementation:
- There's no explanation behind the math of weighing that's done. "these scores were calculated based on your ratings for each choice and the weight you gave to each factor" isn't an explanation. "(e.g., "super important" has a weight of 4 and "not that important" has a weight of 1)" doesn't tell me why my choice of one "super important" and one "not that important" gives me the score of 14. Not knowing the math you're doing makes me not trust the result. I mean, I suspect you're doing "sum of factors multiplied by weights", but a non-math-savvy person may take a while to figure where the numbers come from.
- Too many pages. I know you're aiming for dead simple (technically) UI, but I think it would be better if I could enter choices and factors on the same page.
- I'd consider changing the factor score UI from:
- ( ) 4 (best)
- ( ) 3
- (x) 2
- ( ) 1 (worst)
4 - best: ( ) ( ) (x) ( ) :1 - worst
--
Quite honestly, a perfect incarnation of this idea to me would be a spreadsheet. This problem domain naturally fits into a shape like this:
What should I eat tonight?
| Option x Factor | Effort | Taste | Biosafety || SCORE |
| Factor weitht | 2 | 3 | 4 || |
|-------------------|--- ----|-------|-----------||-------|
| Turkey sandwich | 3 | 2 | 3 || 24 |
| Pizza (delivery) | 4 | 4 | 1 || 24 |
| Pizza (homemade) | 1 | 2 | 4 || 27 |
| Chicken soup | 2 | 3 | 4 || 29 | Something I think you should consider for version 2.0 or as an alternative to test out. Hell, I think I'll make myself one in Excel right now.
I like this idea in general (I have an Android app that does the same thing as your page, except it uses draggable sliders). Here are some things I believe you could improve about the implementation: - There's no explanation behind the math of weighing that's done. "these scores were calculated based on your ratings for each choice and the weight you gave to each factor" isn't an explanation. "(e.g., "super important…
I wouldn't use a spreadsheet. While I clicked 'How was this calculated?', I realised I didn't care.
Your mistake is thinking the purpose of the app is to give the user the perfect objective recommendation. For most decisions, you just want some kind of psychological justification - for some people that can even be a coin flip.
I was the tech guy, working with a coach. The term we used for this method was Weighted Attribute Matrix. The coach had already implemented it as a spreadsheet which he would use as a tool with his clients. He therefore had a (big) pre-created list of criteria, such as “Allows me to spend time with my family”.
Each client would the list the options they were trying to choose between, and then go through the process of 1) weighting the criteria, and 2) scoring the criteria against their choices.
This would take a day or two to do with his clients, and was tedious.
The software we created streamlined all those. First they weighted the criteria, at which point we could then ignore all the criteria the client didn’t care about.
We also drastically improved the interface, and used a bit of UX & phycology to make it a bit addictive. This helped users get through it quickly. I think we got initial results down to 30 mins which was kinda revolutionary for his practice. This software was used in workshops/1-to-1 sessions, not self-guided SaaS-style (although we were considering it)
In the end nothing came of it. I think we fell down on the selling and marketing. Sharing the story here in case it is useful.
Incidentally, I also used this process when buying some land a few years ago. Multiple people had to choose, so we each had a Weighted Attribute Matrix to fill out. I then put it into a Django app and we could see where the disagreements & commonalities lay.
What was especially cool was that people could get a rough idea of how much they would personally like the land without having to visit it.
I absolutely thought I could enter a question and have the site's users decide for me like a strawpoll. I can't even decide what to put in the choices list. Man.
Legit was what I was thinking. I want to make this.
Tip: if you input something and press "enter", it will reset the form. You should attach the event listener to the form's onSubmit, and not to the button's onClick.
or better yet, don't even use for things that don't submit a traditional old-style POST/GET to a server. if you're handling all your logic in javascript on the client side, OR doing everything with AJAJ [0], is unnecessary and you can handle things with button.onClick -- you get to program it just like any other GUI. [0] most people use JSON not XML so i prefer to call it AJAJ not AJAX
Most web applications I have seen opt to use the form element. The default form browser behaviour can be suppressed easily.
I like this idea in general (I have an Android app that does the same thing as your page, except it uses draggable sliders). Here are some things I believe you could improve about the implementation: - There's no explanation behind the math of weighing that's done. "these scores were calculated based on your ratings for each choice and the weight you gave to each factor" isn't an explanation. "(e.g., "super important…
I'm pretty good at UX and I don't have any issues with the current experience. It actually really helped me for my use case. I wouldn't use a spreadsheet. While I clicked 'How was this calculated?', I realised I didn't care. Your mistake is thinking the purpose of the app is to give the user the perfect objective recommendation. For most decisions, you just want some kind of psychological justification - for some peo…
I'm glad the tool helped in your case. I can imagine it helping in mine once, but me getting immediately frustrated. In my own philosophy of UX, I generally don't care much about tools you're only going to use once in your life; I focus on ones that you're going to use repeatedly. Repeated use has different priorities - in particular, efficiency over hand holding.