Using the Decision-Ladder to Add a Formative Element to Naturalistic Decision-Making Research

This article presents a prototypical model of how decision making can proceed within an environment, independent of situation or actor. Based upon Rasmussen's decision-ladder, an approach for capturing formative descriptions of existing decision-making processes is presented. The example of land-based combat identification is used to demonstrate this approach. Two new representations are introduced to aid domain understanding and support the design of decision support tools. The first maps the links between information elements, system states, and options. The second clusters elements in the decision-making process in terms of their location in the world. The approach presented is not intended to replace existing decision-making analysis techniques, rather, based on similar data collection procedures, its aim is to compliment them with a more formative integrant. By considering decision making independently from actor and context, a flexible approach is presented that is applicable complex sociotechnical systems.