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The 18 choice types

Created

A choice type names what you do in the moment, not the subject.

Picking a logo and picking an opening sentence are one type: Pick one. They need different displays, but they ask the same act of you. So each type below applies across every field, and each has its own design. You can see all 18 mockups at once.

This is a proposal. We found no existing taxonomy of choice types across fields for human work with AI, and no standard for choice-making experiences. A search cannot prove that none exists. See the prior art and evidence.

Was the choice real?​

The types say what you did. They do not say whether it counted. A rubber stamp and a hard call can both be a yes. So every moment gets one test:

  1. Could you have gone another way?
  2. Did you know enough to decide?
  3. Did your choice change the work?

Three yeses make a real choice. Cao, 2026 makes a similar point: clicking and selecting are shallow, and the question is whether your reasons shape the work.

The types​

Frame​

Decide what you want, before options exist.

Select​

Choose among what exists.

  • Pick one: choose one from a few.
  • Accept or reject: say yes or no to each item, one or thousands.
  • Rate: score an item on a scale.
  • Rank: put items in order of preference.
  • Sort: put items into groups or slots.
  • Split: divide a fixed amount.
  • Set a value: choose a number on a range.

Shape​

Change the work.

  • Steer: say "more like this" and go again.
  • Mark up: say what to change, on the exact part.
  • Edit: make the change yourself.
  • Combine: take parts from several options.
  • Arrange: decide the order and structure.

Govern​

Decide how the deciding goes.

  • Set a rule: decide once, for every future case.
  • Hand off: give this choice to someone else.
  • Look further: refuse to decide yet, and get more.
  • Stop: halt what is running.

Six properties of every moment​

  1. Stakes: what does it cost if you are wrong, and can you undo it? Bezos asks for both: consequential and irreversible.
  2. Scale: one, a few, or thousands. A backlog is one type at large scale.
  3. Ground: what makes an answer good. Truth, Forecast, Rule, Value or Taste. One moment can have several. This builds on older work: Herbert Simon split facts from values, and McGrath split tasks with correct answers from tasks with none. We read those through secondary sources. For a Christian, calling is held within Value, and the faith page says more.
  4. Medium: how you judge it: by looking, reading, listening or trying it.
  5. Duration: this one time, or from now on. ACP already separates these.
  6. Parties: you alone, or several people together, like a couple or a doctor and a patient.

The type and these properties select the interface. Pick one, with low stakes, a few options, Taste as its ground, and judged by looking, means pictures side by side.

Every moment needs the same parts​

  1. Where things stand.
  2. The options, in a form you can judge.
  3. The reason for each option.
  4. A way to answer outside the options.
  5. A record of what you chose and why.
  6. It works on a phone. People make most of their choices away from a desk, so the phone is the first design, not an adaptation.