Choice Architecture for Human-Computer Interaction

Today's always-available interactive computing technology can be exploited in many ways to help people make good choices in everyday life-about options such as products or health-related behaviors but also about the use of computing technology itself. In contrast to persuasive technology, where it is known in advance what option is supposed to be chosen, Choice Architecture for Human-Computer Interaction focuses on systems that help people choose for themselves. Realizing this potential requires a well-founded understanding of the ways in which people make everyday choices and the design strategies and computing technologies that can be used to support these processes. This work offers a compact synthesis of research on these topics that is specifically formulated to be accessible, useful, and memorable to researchers and practitioners in human-computer interaction. It is illustrated with examples that concern the choices that people make while using interactive computing technology, focusing especially on choices concerning contributions to online communities and on privacy-related choices. Extensive references enable readers to consult the original research literature on topics of special interest to them.