Accting., Mgmr. & f&x Tech., Vol. 2, No. I, pp. l-18, 1992 Printed in the USA. AU rights reserved. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 0959-8022192 $S.OU + 40 Copyright Q 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF PROCESS FEEDBACK IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS: OLD AND NEW WINE IN NEW BOTTLES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfed Dov Te’eni Case Western Reserve University Abs&aet--Process feedback is information to decision makers about the decision-making process de- signed to change the way they make decisions. Information technology offers new opportunities to gen- erate and provide process feedback during human-computer interactions for decision making, but there is growing evidenee that the effectiveness of feedback is sensitive to its content and form. This paper proposes a framework for analyzing and designing process feedback. The framework describes the interaction between the decision task, the corresponding decision behavior, and the feed- back. Using this framework, the paper demonstrates how to prescribe the content and form of process feedback. Thus, this work offers a unified framework for constructing testable propositions on the con- tent and form of interactive feedback as a basis for future research. It suggests that the specification of feedback become an essential activity in building interactive information systems. Keywords: Feedback, decision making, human-computer interaction. Increasingly, computer-based support for solving complex problems is taking the form of continuous and evolving interaction between the user and the computerized system. Stabell(l990) describes a system to support decisions on oil drilling that is designed to eval- uate the user’s input during the interaction and feed it back to the user. For instance, the system evaluates the user’s estimate of the quantity of oil by presenting an overall assess- ment of the estimate such as “UNRER ESTIMAT~~,~’ which is based on a comparison with other drillings in the vicinity. The user may choose to reconsider the estimate, which in turn, may trigger other feedback. Such a scenario is consistent with the idea that man- agerial decision making should be regarded as a professional activity that requires judge- ment and reflection during the decision-making process (Schon, 1983), and that decision support systems guide this process (Silver, 1991). This paper develops a framework for an- alyzing and designing information about the ongoing decision-making process that is pro- vided to the user by an interactive information system, It may also serve as a more general perspective for the analysis and design of human-computer interaction to support decision making. For a specific instance of decision making, it should be possible to identify a decision task and to describe the decision maker’s actual decision behavior. The decision task is the