I’m interested in changes in the visual and sonic makeup of a digital environments may change how we take risks in said digital environment.

In order to study how our risk-taking behavior changes in digital environments, I’ve created a series of interfaces. Each interface asks the user to make a decision that would probably be considered high-risk. For several interfaces, the user is asked to make some high-stakes financial decisions. In others, the user is asked to make choices that affect other people’s well being, or their own. ALL questions are for imagined situations.

The first of the digital environments is a control interface, where as few interactions take place as possible. The design of the interface is a typical web-page browser, with as little designed embellishment as possible. Here’s what the control environment looks like right now:

The time the user spends on the “Choice” page is timed. In other pages, the Choice page is not the first page, and the timed part of their interaction will not start until their reach it. After the user uses each interface, they will be asked the following questions:

• What choice did you make?
• Do you feel like this was a risk-seeking choice or a risk-averse one?
• Were the interactions satisfying?
  • What would you change, if anything?

Their answers, choices, and timed information will appear as data sets in order to compare users’ reactions to each unique interface.