An Experimental Evaluation of Information Visualization Techniques and Decision Style on Decision Performance

The importance of individual characteristics has been emphasized in the human computer interaction and information visualization (IV) literature. However, decision style, which is recognized as one of the key individual cognitive differences that affects system success, has received little attention in these areas. This study aims to examine how individual differences, IV techniques and task complexity influence decision performance and user preferences in a business decision support environment. The study adopted an experimental method, based on within-subject design approach. The results showed that there were significant differences in decision performance between IV techniques, individual differences and task. The results suggest that decision style is a significant moderator on the relationship between IV and performance. The findings have important implications for the DSS designers, and provide important research issues for future work