Systematicity of Search Index: A new measure for exploring information search patterns

Many studies on information search in multi‐attribute decision making rely on the analysis of transitions from 1 piece of information to the next. One challenge is to categorize information search that includes an equal amount of alternative‐ and attribute‐wise transitions. We propose a measure, the Systematicity of Search Index (SSI), for exploring information search based on sequences of either alternative‐ or attribute‐wise transitions. The SSI explores information search in terms of systematicity or the proportion of nonrandom search, that is, search that is alternative‐ or attribute‐wise, corrected for chance. Our experiment confirms the validity of the SSI and shows that the SSI can shed light on processes not captured by the measures analysing single transitions, such as Payne's Search Index.