Framing broadband services

Choosing a broadband service can be a complex and confusing decision making process, especially when there are so many options available on the market. To understand how the amount and complexity of information provided about broadband services affects consumers, a controlled laboratory experiment was conducted. In some conditions, the broadband service packages were presented in numerical terms, while in others they were coded by color into different categories. Some package descriptions contained unneeded information, while other package descriptions provided only the information needed to make a decision. Results showed that numerical terms encouraged good decision making, superfluous information encouraged bad decision making. Over the course of the experiment, decision making improved when feedback was provided.