Knowledge portal for evaluating product attractiveness and risk

• US 7,778,898 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2004
• Issued: 08/17/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Ram consulting
• Original Assignee: Ram consulting
• Inventors: Brown, Tina, Rider, Eugene, Huang, Erh-An, Chen, Xiao, Milkovich, Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Kazimi; Hani
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shrestha; Bijendra K
• Application Number:
  US10/757,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20050159966A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,406 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A method and system is provided to uniformly evaluate product characteristics and identifying risk factors associated with the products so that a comprehensive scoring system provides an attractiveness score by age brackets and also provides for a consistent quantification process so that an overall characterization may be viewed by a color coded scoring scheme. The scoring system is based on predetermined scores created for age brackets and pre-identified product attributes. Through user feedback a new product may be evaluated using a series of questions that are associated with the predetermined scores producing an overall attractiveness score. Through another set of questions and predetermined mitigation scores, a mitigations score may be developed for the product so that by combining the attractiveness score with the mitigation score and comprehensive product score may be produced indicative of risk. The invention also provides for exploring various categories of characteristics that may lead to particular behavioral responses to the product by age group.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for assessing product risk comprising the steps of:

providing predetermined attractiveness scores associated with product attributes and one or more age brackets for a product, the product attributes including images, color, textures, movement, light, noise, smell, and taste, wherein the providing occurs prior to a market introduction of the product;

prompting for feedback relating to each of the product attributes;

providing predetermined mitigation scores associated with one or more mitigation categories and the one or more age brackets;

prompting for mitigation feedback;

generating a composite attractiveness score and a composite mitigation score based on the feedback;

generating a composite product score based on a difference between the composite attractiveness score and the composite mitigation score for an age bracket;

computing at least one product score for the product attributes based on the predetermined attribute scores and the feedback; and

outputting the composite product score to be used at least in part to change a design criteria of the product,

wherein the providing, prompting, computing and outputting steps are performed by a computer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

generating at least one mitigation score based on the mitigation feedback, wherein the mitigation score provides a mitigation to the at least one product score.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the mitigation feedback relates to at least one of a caregiver perception, a user perception, a value, and a labeling effectiveness.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the composite product score is indicative of risk level for a certain age group using a certain product.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the mitigation score is color coded.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the product attributes include at least one of a sensory attribute, a physical attribute, and a cognitive attribute.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the sensory attribute includes at least one of a image attribute, a color attribute, a texture attribute, a movement attribute, a light attribute, a sound attribute, a smell attribute, and a taste attribute, and wherein the cognitive attribute includes at least one of a challenge attribute and an influential attribute.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the image attribute includes at least one of a no face, a simple outline of a face, a representation of a human face, a representation of a recognizable character, a representation of a generic character, a recognizable object, and an abstract recognizable image.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein, the color attribute includes at least one of a non-primary/neutral color, a primary/bright color, a black and white color, multiple contrasting colors, and a shiny/reflective color.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein, the challenge attribute includes at least one of opportunity for intellectual challenge and no opportunity for intellectual challenge.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the physical attribute includes at least one of no physical opportunity, encouraging gross motor skills, encouraging individual fine motor skills, and interactive physical activity attribute.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

providing one or more predetermined exploration scores having one or more exploration attributes and one or more age brackets;

prompting for feedback relating to one or more exploration questions, each of the one or more exploration questions having an associated one of the one or more predetermined exploration scores; and

generating an exploration summary score based on affirmatively answered questions of the feedback and corresponding associated one or more predetermined exploration scores associated with the affirmatively answered questions, the exploration summary having the one or more exploration attributes and the one or more age brackets,

wherein the exploration summary is indicative of behavior preferences by the one or more age brackets and the one or more exploration attributes.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more exploration attributes include at least one of a mouthing object, an alternating mouthing and looking object, a rotating object, a first insertion attribute, a second insertion attribute, a transferring hand to hand attribute, a banging objects attribute, a dropping objects attribute, a throwing objects attribute, a combining objects, a using appropriately attribute, a representational play attribute, a using imaginatively object attribute, and a testing the limits attribute.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing step occurs during design of the product.

14. A computer-implemented method for assessing product risk comprising the steps of:

providing predetermined attractiveness scores associated with product attributes and one or more age brackets for a product, the product attributes including images, color, textures, movement, light, noise, smell and taste, wherein the providing predetermined attractiveness scores occurs prior to a market introduction of the product;

providing predetermined mitigation scores associated with one or more mitigation categories and the one or more age brackets;

providing mitigation feedback;

generating a composite attractiveness score˜ and

a composite mitigation score based on the mitigation feedback;

generating a composite product score based on a difference between the composite attractiveness score and the composite mitigation score for an age group; and

outputting the composite product score for changing a design criteria of the product,

wherein each of the providing and generating steps execute on a computer platform.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the composite product score is indicative of at least one of behavioral attractiveness and risk.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

providing one or more predetermined exploration scores having one or more exploration attributes and one or more age brackets;

prompting for feedback relating to one or more exploration questions, each of the one or more exploration questions having an associated one of the one or more predetermined exploration scores; and

generating an exploration summary score based on affirmatively answered exploration questions using the one or more predetermined exploration scores associated with the affirmatively answered questions,

wherein the exploration summary is indicative of behavior preferences by the one or more age brackets and the one or more exploration attributes.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the one or more product attributes include at least one of a sensory attribute, a physical attribute, and a cognitive attribute and the one or more mitigation categories includes at least one of a caregiver perception, a user perception, a value, and a labeling effectiveness.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the providing predetermined attractiveness scores step occurs during design of the product.

18. A computer program product embodied in a storage medium having components for executing a process, the computer program product when executed on a computer for assessing product attractiveness and risk, comprising:

a first component embodied in a storage medium to provide predetermined attractiveness scores associated with product attributes and one or more age brackets for a product, the product attributes including images, color, textures, movement, light, noise, smell and taste, wherein the first component provides predetermined attractiveness scores prior to a market introduction of the product;

a second component embodied in a storage medium to prompt for feedback relating to each the product attributes; and

a third component embodied in a storage medium to compute a product attractiveness score for the product attributes based on the predetermined attribute scores and the feedback;

a fourth component embodied in the storage medium to provide predetermined mitigation scores associated with one or more mitigation categories and the one or more age brackets;

a fifth component embodied in a storage medium to prompt for mitigation feedback; and

a sixth component embodied in a storage medium to generate a composite attractiveness score, and a composite mitigation score based on the mitigation feedback; and

a seventh component embodied in a storage medium to generate and output a composite product score based on a difference between the composite attractiveness score and the composite mitigation score for changing a design criteria of the product.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the composite product score is indicative of risk level.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the mitigation score and attractiveness score are color coded.

23. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the providing predetermined attractiveness scores step occurs during design of the product.