Nudging for smart construction: Tackling uncertainty by changing design engineers' choice architecture

Nudging refers to the deliberate change in choice architecture (i.e., the careful design of the environments in which people make choices) with the goal of engineering a particular (benign) outcome. The core proposition of nudging is that seemingly innocuous alterations of choice architecture matter: they influence decision making. Typically, the early stages of decision making in construction projects have a long-term impact on project performance, but are at the same time often fraught with uncertainties. We experimentally examine if tweaking a trade-off matrix used to assess preliminary design options in a design competition can raise uncertainty awareness of decision makers and can nudge decision makers away from riskier, more uncertain options, towards less risky and uncertain options. First results indicate a statistically unreliable shift in the predicted direction. Based on our research results, we suggest and discuss other pertinent and potentially more effective nudges.