Minimalist Criteria

At the simplest level, the customer may use what the experts call "MINIMALIST" criteria, but which we might call arbitrary. The programmers who work at my company provided a rather amusing instance of this kind of decision making when it comes to choosing a lunch destination. They used to waste a sizable portion of their lunch period arguing and debating about where to go. Finally, they resolved it as only programmers would-they wrote a piece of software that makes the decision for them. At first, it was a random lunch generator, but then they got a bit more sophisticated. Now they enter a single factor, such as proximity or price, and click the mouse. The system generates a lunch destination based on that factor. And off they go, content with the choice.