IDSS: Designing to extend the cognitive limits

The paper presents the conceptual and operational basis of the creation of IDSS based on our recent research experience. In this paper, an intelligent decision support system, IDSS is defined as: any interactive system that is specially designed to improve the decision making of its user by extending the user's cognitive decision making abilities. As a result, this view of man-machine joint cognitive system stresses the need to use computational technology to aid the user in the decision making process. And the human's role is to achieve total systems's objectives. The paper outlines the designing procedure in successive steps. First, the decision maker's cognitive needs for decision support are identified. Second, the computationally realizable support functions are defined that could be provided by IDSS. Then, the specific techniques that would best fill the decision needs are discussed. And finally, for system implementation the modern computational technology infrastructure is emphasized.