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About this lesson
Enter any combinations of criteria and their levels that are unrealistic, so that these may be omitted from the trade-offs, thereby minimizing confusion in the decision-making process.
Exercise files
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Quick reference
Impossible Combinations
These are any combinations of criteria and their levels that are not realistically possible (e.g. a car with high engine power but low fuel consumption).
When to use
Use if the inclusion of such combinations in the trade-offs might cause confusion.
Instructions
- You can view and add impossible combinations by clicking the arrow next to "Criteria" in the left-hand menu, then clicking on "Impossible Combinations"
- You can also add impossible combinations as you come across them during the trade-offs, by clicking on the garbage icon on the top right corner of a combination that you think is impossible
- Any combinations that you specified as impossible will be removed from the trade-offs
Hints & tips
- Depending on the context, you should be careful not to enter combinations as impossible if they are unrealistic only to you personally, but may be realistic to someone else. For example, saying “I have trouble walking” and “I can perform my every day tasks with ease” may be normal for someone who has never been able to walk.
- Only mark a combination as impossible if including it would cause confusion. Otherwise, you may lose some information about your preferences. Sometimes we have unrealistic preferences, like wanting a very large but very light phone, and that's okay!
- 00:05 Now let's add impossible combinations.
- 00:09 These are any combinations of our criteria that are not realistically possible.
- 00:14 For example, a car that has high engine power and
- 00:18 low fuel consumption is not a realistic possibility.
- 00:22 So that would be an impossible combination.
- 00:26 Specifying any impossible combinations reduces the number of trade-offs you
- 00:31 have to make.
- 00:33 And it spares you from having to think about unrealistic questions.
- 00:37 But if you can't think of any impossible combinations, then you can skip this step.
- 00:45 In our case, we're looking at a new phone to buy.
- 00:48 And two of our criteria are the screen size and the weight.
- 00:53 It's unrealistic for a phone to have a large screen size but
- 00:56 be super light, at least of today's technology.
- 01:00 So we can enter that as an impossible combination.
- 01:05 To enter an impossible combination, we click on the field below whichever
- 01:10 criteria we want to include and enter the corresponding levels.
- 01:16 We can also add any comments that we want to include on the right.
- 01:22 If we want to add a new combination, then we just need to click on new combination.
- 01:29 Depending on the context,
- 01:30 you should be careful not to enter combinations as impossible.
- 01:35 If they're unrealistic only to you personally,
- 01:38 but may be realistic to someone else.
- 01:41 For example, you might think that saying, I have trouble walking and
- 01:46 I can perform my everyday tasks with ease may be an impossible combination.
- 01:51 But it's actually normal for someone who's never been able to walk.
- 01:57 If you can't think of any impossible combinations right now,
- 02:01 you can always identify such combinations if they appear while you're
- 02:05 making trade-offs rather than specifying them beforehand.
- 02:12 Let's pretend that this combination on the left here is impossible.
- 02:16 It's actually not, but let's pretend that it is.
- 02:20 So we click on the delete icon on the top right corner.
- 02:25 And that way we can mark it as impossible, which will remove it from the trade-offs.
- 02:31 That combination will also be listed under impossible combinations as we see here.
- 02:39 Keep in mind that if you enter any combinations as impossible,
- 02:42 then you may lose some information about your preferences.
- 02:46 Because these combinations won't be shown in your trade-offs.
- 02:51 You can still dream of ideal alternatives even if they're not realistic,
- 02:55 because this helps you weigh the criteria.
- 02:58 Personally, I'd love to have a phone that's both super-light and
- 03:03 has a large screen.
- 03:04 So only specify impossible combinations if you think they might cause confusion.
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