Apparatus and methods for a computer aided decision-making system

• US 6,826,552 B1
• Filed: 02/04/2000
• Issued: 11/30/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: XFI Corp.
• Original Assignee: XFI Corp.
• Inventors: Ghaed, Ali, Grosser, John T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Knight, Anthony
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hirl, Joseph P.
• Application Number:
  US09/497,678
• Time in Patent Office: 1,761 Days
• Field of Search: 706/47, 706/45, 706/46, 705/1, 700/1
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A computer-aided decision-making system and method that is applicable to a variety of decision-making contexts and applications such as, but not limited to, automobile or home purchase decisions. The computer-aided decision-making system provides immediate, useful, and relevant information to a person in a decision-making context, overcoming common human cognitive problems that occur in decision-making, and enabling consumer purchases in an on-line sales environment. In particular, aspects of the invention that aid a person in decision-making include, but are not limited to: managing all the sub-decisions, educating the decision-maker, highlighting the most important sub-decisions, offering the most viable proposals for evaluation, distinguishing significant differences between proposals, supplying various evaluation tools, preventing blind spots, assisting the decision-maker'"'"'s memory, gauging the progress of the decision process, and learning about the decision maker from the decision process.

Claims

1. A computer-aided decision-making system, comprising:

a rules-based analysis engine employing a plurality of rules, said rules being used for selecting and scoring and ranking a plurality of choices;

a user interface operable to accept user-provided information and selections and responses to system inquiries, said user interface indicating system-generated reports and proposals and feedback, said user interface comprising a plurality of advocates selectable by a user and controlled by said rules-based analysis engine to aid the user in making a choice, said advocates being embodied in software and representing points of view with respect to a decision to be made, said points of view represented by weights assigned to positions on issues; and

wherein said rules-based analysis engine accepts said user-provided information and presents through said user interface choices to aid the user in making a decision, said choices being at least one commented on and chosen by said advocates.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said user interface further comprises an upper pane and a lower pane for displaying a plurality of reports and decision gauges.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said advocates possess articulate behavior by printed message, sound or movement in response to said user'"'"'s selection of a choice, said articulate behavior indicating the point of view of said advocate.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said rules-based analysis engine includes a plurality of databases, said databases comprising:

a merchant/products database containing detailed product or service information; and

a shopper profile database containing individual shopper or purchaser information pertaining to at least one of user characteristics and purchasing behavior and product/service preferences.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein said rules-based analysis engine comprises:

a residual knowledge database for maintaining errata and modifications to information contained in said merchant/products database; and

a user decision document database capable of storing decision state information responsive to the user requesting to store a current decision state for later use.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein said rules-based analysis engine further comprises:

a plurality of database descriptions for indexing of information contained in said databases;

a plurality of system rules/facts that are applicable to a plurality of decision domains; and

a plurality of application rules/facts that are specific to a particular decision domain.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said rules-based analysis engine is a fuzzy logic system.

8. A computer-aided decision making system, comprising;

a web browser;

a server-side application/web server, wherein said web browser and said server-side application/web server form a distributed computing client-server system;

a plurality of applets for running a rules-based analysis engine, rules of said rules-based analysis engine being used far selecting, scoring and ranking a plurality of choices presented by said client-server system, said scoring and ranking retaining all of said plurality of choices without removal of lower ranking choices;

said plurality of applets provide advocates giving advice to the user to aid in making a decision, said advocates providing comments on at least said user-made choices, said advocates being embodied in software and representing points of view with respect to said decision, said points of view represented by weights assigned to positions on issues;

an interface having a first portion for displaying system-made choices and a second portion for displaying user-made choices, said second portion accepting the user-made choices as user preferences, said user choices being promoted from, said first portion to said second portion;

wherein said client-server system aids a user browsing on the web in making a decision.

9. A computer readable media that causes a computer-aided decision-making system to aid a user in making a choice, performing the steps of:

retrieving system provided subchoices specific to a decision domain from a set of application rules/facts;

accepting user input regarding said subchoices via an input;

aggregating said subchoices into distinct facets based upon type of information;

establishing a multidimensional hierarchical relationship among;

said facets, wherein said facets are ordered within a dimension according to increasing specificity to an ultimate selected proposal to define ordered facets;

permitting user access to ones of said facets without regard to position at a currently accessed facet relative to a previously accessed facet of said ordered facets;

wherein an advocate is presented to said user to aid in selecting a proposal, said advocate being embodied in software and representing a point of view with respect to the decision, said point of view represented by weights assigned to positions on issues.

10. The computer readable media of claim 9, wherein said advocate articulates an opinion relating to said point of view by one of printed message and sound and movement.

11. A computer-aided decision making system for deciding among a plurality of choices, comprising:

a rules-based analysis engine;

a user interface accepting input from a user and providing output including results of application of said rules-based analysis engine to inputs of the user;

at least one advocate selected by the user having a predetermined perspective relating to said choices, said at least one advocate applying said predetermined perspective to said choices and presenting a corresponding perspective to the user, said at least one advocate being an embodied in software, said predetermined perspective being represented by weights assigned to positions on issues related to said decision.

12. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 11, wherein said at least one advocate provides said predetermined perspective to the user in an unsolicited manner.

13. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 12, wherein said unsolicited perspective of said at least one advocate is triggered by an input by the user that represents a position contrary to a position represented by a prior input by the user.

14. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 12, further comprising:

an advocate mute operable by the user to selectively mute a presentation of a perspective from said at least one advocate when more than one advocate is present.

15. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 12, further comprising:

a threshold for advocate responses which inhibits responses from said advocate when a difference between an expected choice and a user-entered choice is below said threshold.

16. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 11, wherein said at least one advocate presents educational information to the user relating to said choices.

17. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 11, wherein said at least one advocate includes a plurality of advocates, each of said advocates having different perspectives regarding said choices.

18. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said plurality of advocates have mutually different strengths of positions on issues relating to said decision, and said plurality of advocates are presented to the user on said user interface ordered according to said strengths of said positions of said advocates.

19. A method of sorting proposals, comprising the steps of:

providing a plurality of choices to a plurality of users;

receiving input from the plurality of users;

applying a rules-based analysis to said plurality of choices from said input of the user to assign a rank to each of said choices;

presenting an ordered sort of all choices of said plurality of choices according to said rules-based analysis; and

providing a plurality of advocates, each of said advocates being embodied in software and representing a point of view with respect to the decision, said point of view being represented by weights assigned to positions on issues relating to said decision, one of said advocates being a user advocate associated with at least one of the users, said user advocate representing the weighted range of said at least one user relating to said proposals to others of the users.