The purpose of this assignment is to practice understanding the concepts of decision rules discussed in chapter 8.

Step 1. Read a transcript of a focus group discussing new smartphones below.

Mark G.: "Price was my most important feature in choosing a smartphone from the four alternative brands I had identified: I looked at all the smartphones with this in mind and got rid of those whose price was higher than I was willing to pay. The next most important feature to me was image quality, so then I got rid of those remaining smartphones whose image quality was lower than I was looking for. The next most important feature to me was weight, and I rejected those smartphones that had weights above a certain limit. At this point, only one smartphone remained, and this is the smartphone I bought."

Patricia L.: "I looked at the feature that was most important to me and planned to choose the smartphone that was best on that feature. When two smartphone proved to be equally great on that feature, I looked at my next most important feature and that broke the tie."

Kamal K: "I chose the smartphone that was the best when I balanced the good with the bad."

Lyndzy M: "I ranked the features that were most important to me, and, starting with the most important feature, got rid of any smartphone that didn't meet my standard with regard to that feature. Then I went to the next most important feature and did the same thing, and so on down the list of features. Eventually only one smartphone was left."

Randy J.: "I picked the smartphone that had no really bad features."

Bruce F: "l looked at all aspects at once. For instance, one smartphone might have had really bad scores on some attributes, but those could be offset by very good scores on other attributes. I wanted the smartphone that was the best overall."

Ming E.: "l ranked the features of the smartphones in terms of importance to me. Then I looked at the feature that was most important to me and chose the smartphone that scored best with regard to that feature."

Dennis A.: "I ended up buying the smartphone that met my minimum standards on all features."

Step 2. Use your understanding of Decision Rules to assess which of the four types of Decision Rules: Conjunctive, Lexicographic, Elimination-by-Aspects, or Compensatory that each focus group member likely used (Hint: each of the four types of Decision Rules is represented twice).

Step 3. Record your answers below.