Apparatus and methods for a computer-aided decision-making system

• US 20050086187A1
• Filed: 09/28/2004
• Published: 04/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: XFI Corp.
• Original Assignee: XFI Corp.
• Inventors: Ghaed, Ali, Grosser, John T.
• Granted Patent: US 7,130,836 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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

1-19. -19. canceled

20. 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 abstract personalities embodied in software and representing points of view with respect to a decision to be made, said points of view including strong positions on some issues and weak positions on other 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 of commented on and chosen by said advocates.

21. A system of claim 20, wherein said user interface further comprises an upper pane and a lower pane for displaying a plurality of reports and decision gauges.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein said advocates posses 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.

23. The system of claim 20, 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 personal characteristics and purchasing behavior and product/service preferences.

24. The system of claim 23, 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.

25. The system of claim 23, 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.

26. The system of claim 20, wherein said rules-based analysis engine is a fuzzy logic system.

27. 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 for 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; and

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.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein said plurality of applets provide advocates giving advise to the user to aid in making a decision, said advocates providing comments on at least said user-made choices, said advocates being abstract personalities embodied in software and representing points of view with respect to said decision, said points of view including strong positions on some issues and weak positions on other issues.

29. A method for assisting a person in making a decision, comprising:

decomposing a choice into a plurality of subchoices, wherein said subchoices represent different dimensions of a decision space;

determining a plurality of potential proposals for each said subchoice;

ranking said subchoices according to a range of general to specific subchoices and presenting said ranking to a user for random access at any position along the general to specific ranking;

ranking said plurality of potential proposals in accordance with a user'"'"'s selection among said plurality of subchoices;

ordering said proposals using presentation to indicate a relative ranking of said proposals;

presenting all of said plurality of proposals in ranking order to the user without removing proposals from said plurality of proposals; and

accepting a selection by the user of any proposal of said plurality of proposals regardless of a position of a chosen proposal in said ranking order.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein said step of decomposing a choice into a plurality of subchoices further comprises:

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; and

accepting a user selection of an ultimate proposal prior to receiving input from the user for each of said facet so that the decision process is ended prior to consideration of each facet.

31. The method of claim 29, wherein said step of determining a plurality of potential proposals further comprises:

retrieving system-provided values for each said subchoice from a set of databases;

accepting user-provided values via said input for at least one of said subchoices;

calculating an overall weighted score for each subchoice by use of an analysis engine combining said system-provided values and said user-provided values to establish boundaries to said potential proposals based on said system provided values and said user provided values;

generating a plurality of proposals in accordance with said weighted score, aid generated plurality of proposals including proposals both within said boundary and outside said boundary; and

accepting promotion of a proposal by the user from outside said boundary to inside said boundary.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein said step of calculating further comprises:

adjusting value of said system-provided values to user selected values;

predicting by look-ahead an adjustment of a ranking of a choice in order to solicit user feedback for that choice when a determination is made that such user feedback would assist a user in converging to a selected choice.

33. 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; and

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

34. The computer readable media of claim 33, wherein an advocate is presented to said user to aid in selecting a proposal, said advocate being an abstract personality embodied in software and representing a point of view with respect to the decision, said point of view including strong positions on some issues and weak positions on other issues.

35. The computer readable media of claim 34, wherein said advocate articulates his opinion relating to said point of view by one of printed message and sound and movement.

36. 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 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 abstract personality embodied in software, said abstract personality having strong positions on some issues related to said decision and weak positions on other issues related to said decision.

37. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 36, further comprising:

an advocate control operable so that the user selectively applies said predetermined perspective of said at least one advocate to said choices.

38. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 36, wherein said at least one advocate provides said predetermined perspective to the user in an unsolicited manner.

39. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 38, 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.

40. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 38, further comprising:

an advocate mute operable by the user to selectively mute a presentation of a perspective from said at least one advocate.

41. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 38, 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.

42. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 36, wherein said at least one advocate presents educational information to the user relating so said choices.

43. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 36, wherein said at least one advocate includes a plurality of advocates, each of said advocates having different perspectives regarding said choices.

44. A computer-aided decision making system as claimed in claim 39, 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.

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

providing a plurality of choices for a user;

accepting input from the user;

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; and

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

accepting designations of choices preferred by the user to a short list;

fixing sort values in said ordered sort of choices designated to said short list;

accepting further input from the user, said further input including input that is inconsistent with the designations by the user, said inconsistent input being accepted; and

resorting choices based on said further input without resorting choices designated to said short list.

46. 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;

providing a plurality of advocates, each of said advocates being an abstract personality embodied in software and representing a point of view with respect to the decision, said point of view including strong positions on some issues relating to said decision and weak positions on other 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 strong positions and weak positions of said at least one user relating to said proposals to others of the users.