Hunch.com: Did Decision Making Really Just Get That Much Easier?

Phew. I’m not socially awkward.

At least that is what Hunch.com, a popular new website designed to make decision making more simple and straightforward, reassured me. After choosing a decision topic entitled “Am I socially awkward?,” I was relieved when the decision outcome pleasantly replied, “You’re fine!” Now it is time to decide which brand of toilet paper I should buy…

The fun and addicting Hunch.com was launched for the public earlier last week by the co-founder of the popular photo sharing website, Flickr.

According to one of its founders, the website is “very useful in helping everyone to make smart, efficient decisions.”The site has thousands of decision threads from which to choose. Once you have identified the decision topic that you need advice on, Hunch will offer you a solution, or “hunch,” to your problem by asking you less than ten multiple choice questions. The site is based on the notion that using collective knowledge for decision making is advantageous and can help guide preferable decision outcomes, since everyone cannot be an expert on every subject. The site utilizes an algorithm designed by a team of MIT graduates to flexibly adapt according to its collective knowledge base. Hunch is essentially the Wikipedia for decision making since it grows and improves based on the activity of its users and is a tool free to everyone.

Hunch is customized for you. Not only does it determine what question to ask next based on prior responses, but users can answer over a thousand “teach Hunch about you” questions so that hunches can be personally targeted based on how other “like-minded people” responded. After each hunch, users can evaluate if they liked the decision. This feedback serves to strengthen or weaken the site’s algorithm so that Hunch can learn more about what certain groups of similar people prefer in relation to others. It becomes a better tool with more use since it adapts and grows as a function of its knowledge base.

From a behavioral science perspective, Hunch.com is gathering very valuable information on the “values” of specific human “segments” (groups of people that share something in common). If it is not already in the business plan for Hunch.com, there could be a market for this information (in aggregate form, of course) among companies interested in the values and decision drivers of particular market segments. Note to the Hunch.com Principals: if you hadn’t thought of that until now – give us a call and we’ll help you market this information to the market research and end client communities.

Thus far, Hunch.com sounds fantastic. Since Hunch.com utilizes advanced learning algorithms, it seems to be a scientific and reliable approach to decision making, right?

Perhaps not.

The problem is that the website emits an over-simplified view of decision making. The issue is not the algorithm’s reliability nor the usefulness of collective knowledge; rather, it is the assumptions upon which that algorithm is based. In this way, the basic notions underlying Hunch’s purpose may be flawed.

Hunch assumes that individuals can make decisions based on rational reasons that can be broken down and understood. One decision topic is “Where should I go on vacation?” Hunch may decide that you should choose Vienna based on your preferences for “old-world charm.” However, even though you typically prefer “old-world charm,” you could be even more excited by the idea of traveling somewhere exotic and different, let’s say New Zealand for example. Individuals do not always act according to their traditional preferences, but the site requires you to know your preferences and what trade-offs you are willing to make. One clear insight that has come out of the behavioral sciences in the past 20 years is that preferences are not stable, but rather are context dependent (see, Gonzalez-Vallejo, Reid, and Schiltz, 2003).

It may also not be reasonable to break one decision into other smaller decisions. Individuals often arrive at perceivably irrational decisions based more on gut feelings and emotion since the ultimate decision to go to one place over another may not appear to be based on any rational sub-decision. To continue the vacation example, I may decide to go to Ibiza because I have a strong emotional reaction to it as a whole, regardless of its specific explicit individual attributes.

Hunch.com also raises other questions relevant to consumer decision making and marketing. Along with the decision outcomes, in many instances, the site also provides a link to the product websites. For example, if Hunch decides that I should purchase a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 camera, then it would also have a link to the Panasonic website so that I can purchase the product right then and there. While it may seem convenient, this may also encourage consumers to act impulsively and purchase something right away rather than contemplating over the decision hunch and deciding on their own if that is the best decision.

If people actually decide according to the hunches, it may be worth considering if the fact that someone else has arrived at the decision for you could impact your later satisfaction or regret with the decision. Individuals cannot take personal pride in having made their own wise decision and could possibly as a result derive less pleasure from the product.

Obviously, Hunch.com is not meant to be a behavioral science website that explores the complexities of decision making and individuals’ unconscious associations with different alternatives. It is important to note that Hunch is designed to be a fun tool and does not take itself completely seriously, but it does strive for user satisfaction with the hunches over 90% of the time. Hunch.com is inarguably a well-designed website. Hunch effectively helps to simplify complex decisions by limiting and narrowing one’s focus on the many options out there. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to further explore some fundamental insights into the consumer and human decision making process. This could potentially make the site even more useful and valuable rather than some simply turning to it as a procrastination tool.

So, if Hunch can solve all of my dilemmas for me, the only quandary remaining is how will I decide which decision to ask Hunch for help on?