CrowdIDEA: Blending Crowd Intelligence and Data Analytics to Empower Causal Reasoning

Abstract

Causal reasoning is crucial for people to understand data, make decisions, or take action. However, individuals often have blind spots and overlook alternative hypotheses, and using only data is insufficient for causal reasoning. We designed and implemented CrowdIDEA, a novel tool consisting of a three-panel integration incorporating the crowd’s beliefs (Crowd Panel with two designs), data analytics (Data Panel), and user’s causal diagram (Diagram Panel) to stimulate causal reasoning. Through an experiment with 54 participants, we showed the significant effects of the Crowd Panel designs on the outcomes of causal reasoning, such as an increased number of causal beliefs generated. Participants also devised new strategies for bootstrapping, strengthening, deepening, and explaining their causal beliefs, as well as taking advantage of the unique characteristics of both qualitative and quantitative data sources to reduce potential biases in reasoning. Our work makes theoretical and design implications for exploratory causal reasoning.