By Angelo Fernando and Ricardo Leon

• The Decision Theater makes the classroom and learning experience portable by providing an immersive, collaborative, and interactive decision lab.
• Dynamic conversations can take place in this learning environment.
• Visualization of complex concepts helps people “see differently” and make better-informed decisions.

The Decision Theater is a world-class decision lab that’s open to policy-makers, businesses, community groups, researchers, and students. The immersive, interactive environment provides tools for collaborative scenario planning and exploration of uncertain systems. Three faculty members and the director of the Decision Theater provide a glimpse of how the Decision Theater at Arizona State University is changing the way people arrive at better decisions.

Video Demonstration of the ASU Decision Theater

Additional Resources

The following resources provide more information on the Decision Theater, including theories behind the use of immersive environments for decision making and how the Decision Theater has been used for specific projects:

• Dr. Deirdre Hahn’s conference presentation explores visualization as a communication medium and the effect of immersive visual environments on perception.
• ASU's Project Summaries touches on water management for the East Valley Water Forum and smart growth strategies for the City of Mesa. Both projects have used visualization, modeling, and collaborative decision-making in the Decision Theater environment.
• A micro-site features managing groundwater for the East Valley Water Forum: http://www.decisiontheater.org/evwf/.

© 2009 Angelo Fernando and Ricardo Leon. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license.

Angelo Fernando

Communications and Outreach Manager for the Decision Theater 

Arizona State University 

Ricardo Leon

Student Worker and Multimedia Assistant for the Decision Theater 

Arizona State University 

Bookmark/Search this page with: