But consider that, in choosing a metric around which to characterise choices, we would want one that: (a) accommodates many value systems across different users, (b) aligns with user intuitions about what's good, and (c) aligns with human needs.
As philosopher Ruth Chang has argued, it seems likely that we define and adjust our values while making choices. Specifically, we evolve our values when we have an initial difficulty making a choice because one option seems better in some ways, and another better in a different way. Dr. Chang suggests
these are the moments where we reexamine and change our values, and that we often choose a new, more general value for ourselves that makes the choice more clear.
If this is correct, we need a name for the environments in which this activity of self-construction can proceed fluidly. We will call these environments of expressive choice. To make an expressive choice, users must be able to explore a space of values that might apply to the choice, and to organize the options in front of themin terms of whatever they decide matters to them. As simple a thing as providing widgets for changing the sort order and filtering of options creates more possibility for expressive choice.
If menus are to help us find decisions we won‘t regret, they must allow us to explore what’s important to us about the options, and to navigate according to what we've decided is important.
While human pursuits in general are of infinite variety, the key categories for everyday life are: (a) terms related to ideal schedules (e.g. “frequent exercise”), (b) ideal personal states (e.g. “getting hitched”), and (c) ideal tactics (e.g., “acting boldly”).
Facebook and Google know how many people clicked on a URL or linked to a URL, but they don’t currently know how many are glad they went, and why.
We can think of this “big data” about people and URLs as a kind of collective intelligence we share with one another, but when you look at the metrics that we mainly use to propel media coverage—likes / clicks / views / purchases / downloads—a better name might be “collective impulse”, because this data is dominated by samples from the impulsive, lost moments in people's days.
As such, this new big data about people, choices, and outcomes would constitute a real collective wisdom: an alternative to virality, a new claim as to what's worth sharing.
If collective wisdom can be used to drive distribution and ranking of options, it will mean less-regrettable options at hand for most people. That will mean fewer desperate choices and more lives well lived.
he results suggested that user behavior can change significantly when recommendations are ordered by desired outcome and ranked by reported likelihood of an outcome working out.
https://vimeo.com/123488311https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YiOVj8jKehGf1j62fVtmN1yPfPK3iVI75n7Va__Vw14/edit#heading=h.jnq0tjh6ft3r
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