Video merchandising system with variable and adoptive product sequence presentation order
First Claim
1. A computer controlled video merchandising system for selectively sequentially presenting a visual display of a plurality of items to which a plurality of products attributes have been assigned, said system comprising:
- means for generating a record for each item including the assigned attributes;
means for selecting a sequence for presenting a visual display of the items based upon the assigned attributes;
means for presenting a visual display of said items in said selected sequence;
means for a user to generate a user input in response to the visual display of a particular item; and
means for rearranging said selected sequence based upon the assigned attributes of the particular items for which the user input was generated.
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Abstract
A multimode video merchandiser system utilizes two levels of inductive learning to derive rules for selecting the sequence in which images of products stored on a videodisc are presented on a video monitor to a user. The first level of inductive learning generates rules from market survey based, consumer profile attributes assigned to items selected by previous users to determine the profile of the consumer most likely to be using the system at any given time, and to present the items in a sequence most likely to appeal to such a user. The second level of inductive learning utilizes a set of product characteristic attributes assigned to items selected by the current user to determine that user'"'"'s preferences, and to modify the sequence of presentation to display first those items possessing the preferred characteristics.
773 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A computer controlled video merchandising system for selectively sequentially presenting a visual display of a plurality of items to which a plurality of products attributes have been assigned, said system comprising:
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means for generating a record for each item including the assigned attributes; means for selecting a sequence for presenting a visual display of the items based upon the assigned attributes; means for presenting a visual display of said items in said selected sequence; means for a user to generate a user input in response to the visual display of a particular item; and means for rearranging said selected sequence based upon the assigned attributes of the particular items for which the user input was generated.
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2. A method of controlling a video system with a programmed digital computer to display to users in a controllable sequence images of a plurality of items, said method comprising the steps of:
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generating an attribute file containing as to each item an assigned value for at least one selected attribute; establishing a list of said items sorted in the sequence to be presented by the video system based upon the assigned values of said at least one attribute; controlling said video system to display said items in the order of said list; providing means for users to generate inputs indicating interest in selected displayed items; generating a data file containing as to each user input the item selected and a recurring time period during which the input was generated; determining from the attribute file the assigned value of said at least one attribute for each of the selected items in the data file; determining from the recurring time periods of the inputs and the assigned values of said at least one attribute for the selected items the most frequent value of said at least one attribute during each recurring time period; as to the current time period, determining as to each item the match between the assigned value of said at least one attribute and the most frequent value of said at least one attribute during that time period; and resorting said list of items in descending order of said match between the assigned value and the most frequent value during the current time period of said attribute, whereby the sequence in which said items are displayed changes in accordance with the responses of users during the respective time periods. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5)
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6. A method of controlling a video system with a programmed digital computer to display to users in a controllable sequence images of a plurality of items, said method comprising the steps of:
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generating an attribute file containing as to each item an assigned value for each of a plurality of attributes; establishing a list of said items sorted in a sequence to be presented by the video system based upon the assigned values of said attributes; controlling said video recorder to display said items in the order of said list; providing means for users to generate inputs indicating interest in selected items; generating a data file containing as to each user input the item selected and a recurring time period during which the input was generated; determining from the attribute file the assigned value of each of said attributes for each of the selected items in the data file; as to each of said attributes determining from the recurring time periods of the inputs and the assigned values of that attribute for each of the selected items, the most frequent value of that attribute during each recurring time period; as to the current time period, determining as to each item the match between the assigned values of said attributes and the most frequent values of those attributes during that time period; and resorting said list of items in descending order of said match between the assigned values of the most frequent values during the current time period of said attributes, whereby the sequence in which said items are displayed changes in accordance with responses of users during respective time periods. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for sequentially displaying to a number of successive users merchandise items to which a plurality of attribute values indicative of the appeal of the item to selected classifications of users during a plurality of recurring time periods have been assigned, said system comprising:
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a video recorder in which images of said items are stored; a video monitor on which said stored images are selectively displayed; interface means by which users generate inputs identifying displayed items in which they are interested; and a digital computer programmed;
to record the items identified by the inputs and a recurring time period during which each input was generated, to apply an inductive learning algorithm to the attribute values of the selected items to determine the most likely attribute values of items selected by users during each of said recurring time periods, and to select the sequence in which the images stored in the video recorder are displayed on said video monitor in descending order of a match between the attribute values assigned to each item and said most likely attribute values for the current recurring time period. - View Dependent Claims (12)
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13. A computer based method for sequentially presenting on a video monitor, images of items stored in a video recorder, comprising the steps of:
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storing in said computer assigned user profile attribute values and item function attributes for said items; sorting said items to generate an ordered list of the items based upon the assigned user profile attribute values, displaying on said video monitor the stored images in the order established by said list; providing means for a user to generate an input indicating an interest in a particular item; resorting the items on said list for each new user based upon the assigned values of the user profile attributes for the items identified by the previous users; selecting only for the current new user, items having assigned item function attributes which exhibit a predetermined match with the item function attributes of other items selected by said current new user; and displaying the stored images of said selected items on said video monitor before the other items on said ordered list.
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14. A computer based method for sequentially presenting on a video monitor, images of items stored on a videodisc comprising the steps of:
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establishing in the computer a list of said items sorted in a sequence to be presented on the video monitor; sorting in the computer at least on assigned item characteristic attribute for at least some of said items on said stored list of items;
displaying on said video monitor the images stored on said videodisc in the order established by said sorted list;providing means for a user to generate an input indicating an interest in a particular item; generating an item characteristic attribute occurrence list containing the number of occurrences of each item characteristic attribute assigned to items for which a user input has been generated; and revising said sorted list by moving to the top of the sorted list those items having item characteristic attributes having the most number of occurrences. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16)
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Specification