An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Graphical and Tabular Data Presentations on Decision Making

A key issue in designing a computer-based decision support system is how best to depict the data. Since most systems use either graphical or tabular displays, this experiment compares the latter two when used as decision aids for the production scheduling problem modeled by Holt, Modigliani, Muth, and Simon. The tabular aids and the graphical aids yield equally costly decisions. When the erratic components of the decisions are reduced, the tabular aids outperform the graphical aids.