Understanding and influencing decisions

Query an event

Button to query a payment.

Description

Find out why an event happened and get help if it doesn’t look right. This pattern could be used with an activity log to show what led to an event.

For example, some banking apps allow people to query transactions they don’t recognise. They can then find out a bit more information to check that it was a genuine payment.

It can be difficult to understand where automated results come from and often there are mistakes. People need to be able to question an event and see why a decision was made to spot mistakes. If someone does spot a mistake they should be able to get support to fix it.

Advantages

  • See more information about an event in context.
  • People can try to solve the problem on their own.
  • People can flag mistakes from automated results that the service provider might not know about yet.

Limitations

  • This pattern wouldn’t stop the event from happening, but it does give people the tools to understand them and get support if they need.

Examples

  • Making it clear when machines make decisions →

    IF wrote about how automated decisions could be explained in context.

  • Some apps from banks such as Monzo and Starling allow people to query a transaction to find out more and dispute it in case something is wrong.

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