Visualisation tools for exploring the uncertainty-risk relationship in the decision-making process: a preliminary empirical evaluation

Abstract

Models play an important part in the decision-making process. However, due to uncertainty in a model’s input variables, making decisions involves a degree of risk. We have developed two visualization prototypes for exploring the influence of uncertainty in the values of the input variables on the risk associated with the decision-making. The first prototype is the interactive tornado diagram, which is considered as an extension to the static tornado diagram. The second prototype is the Uncertainty Influence Explorer (UIExplorer). This paper presents and discusses the results of an experiment conducted to assess the efficacy of these prototypes and compare their ability to help people answer meaningful questions related to the risk associated with decision-making. The results show that participants using UIExplorer performed better in terms of accuracy and time taken to complete the questions. Also, they found it easier to use and had higher confidence in the decisions being made.