Abstract
Plenty of books dwell on the faults in our decision-making or offer advice on how to make better choices. The Elements of Choice goes one step further and explains how we can design better end-to-end decision-making processes. Going well beyond the familiar concepts of nudges and defaults, Eric J. Johnson offers a comprehensive, systematic guide to creating effective choice architectures, the environments in which decisions are made.
Choice architecture is a multifaceted set of tools for anticipating how people make specific decisions. The designers of decisions need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present them, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, and much more. These levers are unappreciated, and we’re often unaware of just how much they influence our reasoning.