Choose
A choose task selects the best option or subset of options from a set of alternatives.
Use choose when the decision depends on comparison among options.
Typical Questions
- Which option is best?
- Which design should we select?
- Which embryo should be transferred?
- Which candidate should be prioritized?
- Which alternative should be chosen from the shortlist?
Definition
In a choose task, options are evaluated relative to one another. Whether an option is selected depends on how it compares with the other available options.
For example, when buying a car, a user may choose the best car among four available cars. The chosen car may not satisfy every ideal criterion, but it is considered the best among the available alternatives.
The typology paper emphasizes that choose guarantees the quantity of returned options — such as the top one or top k — but does not guarantee that those options meet a fixed quality threshold.
When to Use Choose
Use a choose task when:
- the user must select one or more options;
- the decision involves ranking, comparison, or trade-offs;
- the output should be a fixed number of options;
- the user is asking for “the best” rather than “all acceptable” options.
Home-buying Example
In a homebuying scenario, the buyer compares a shortlist of homes and chooses the one that offers the best overall fit.
The decision depends on tradeoffs among price, location, size, commute time, neighborhood quality, and renovation effort. The selected home does not have to satisfy every ideal preference. It just needs to be the best choice among the available alternatives.
This is a choose task because the output is a fixed selection from a set of candidate options.