DiG was an experimental interface for decision-making. While there are many web sites and interaction techniques for filtering, sorting, visualizing and summarizing data, most of them require users to interact with low-level features. DiG, on the other hand, attempts to determine a user's goals, connects those goals to low-level features behind-the-scenes, and then shows the user a set of decisions that include the features that are important to meet their goals.
That's the idea anyway. When rubber hits road the result is always more mundane (and more difficult and interesting) than rhetoric. This project is no different. The implementation focused on helping users select a camera.
This was an unusual hybrid interface combining a Java applet and an HTML5 widget developed by Aditi Muralidharan.
The selection of uses indirectly selected low-level aspects that had been associated with the uses a priori. After answering the high-level questions users got to see which camera aspects best map to their stated goals. Aspects were also weighted, so for example to meet some goals (hiking) the aspect "durability" would be heavily weighted whereas for others (formal dinners) it would not matter at all.
The aspects themselves were derived from user review data as well as product sheet information (e.g., "resolution").
At this point users could refine their search by adjusting aspect weights or swapping in aspects the system had not selected at all.
Francine Chen did the bulk of the analysis deriving aspects from reviews and connecting them to uses.
DiG isn't the only goal-oriented decision system. Nutmeg is an online investment manager that takes a very similar approach, asking users some simple questions about their financial goals up front and then determining a portfolio that satisfies those goals. The tool goes a step further than DiG and automatically adjusts the "weight" of underlying "aspects" (balance of funds) as conditions change.
Given the increasing complexity of choices in day-to-day life, Nutmeg and companies like it seem like the future of decision management.