Group-decision engine

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016140789-A1
Application number	US-201514939468-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 12, 2015
Priority date	Nov 14, 2014
Publication date	May 19, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A process of expediting a group decision, the process including: instructing computing devices of group members to present options for voting by group members in a plurality of rounds, each round presenting options at a corresponding hierarchical level of a taxonomy, and each round after a first round excluding at least some options based on a group selection in an earlier round; receiving votes of at least some group members in at least some rounds and, in response: adjusting sequences with which options are presented to cause options voted upon favorably by at least some group members to appear earlier in the respective round for other group members; and determining whether a sufficient amount of votes for an option have been received to designate the respective round as complete; and informing a group member of a decision by the group.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method of expediting a group decision, the method comprising:
instructing, with one or more processors, remote computing devices of group members to present options for voting by group members in a plurality of rounds, each round presenting options at a corresponding hierarchical level of a taxonomy, and each round after a first round excluding at least some options based on a group selection in an earlier round; receiving votes of at least some group members in at least some rounds and, in response:
adjusting, with one or more processors, sequences with which options are presented to cause options voted upon favorably by at least some group members to appear earlier in the respective round for other group members; and
determining, with one or more processors, whether a sufficient amount of votes for an option have been received to designate the respective round as complete; and
informing a group member of a decision by the group.

2 . A method, comprising:
receiving, with one or more processors, from a group leader's computing device, a request to initiate a group decision and one or more identifiers of members of a group requested to collectively help make the group decision; obtaining, with one or more processors, a category of decision, the category of decision indicating the category of items among which the group is to choose; obtaining, with one or more processors, candidate sub-categories within the category of decision; sending, with one or more processors, computing devices of members of the group at least some of the candidate sub-categories to choose among; receiving, with one or more processors, sub-category votes on at least some of the candidate sub-categories from at least some of the computing devices of the members of the group; based on the sub-category votes, selecting, with one or more processors, a sub-category from among the candidate sub-categories; sending, with one or more processors, the computing devices of members of the group candidate items within the selected sub-category, without sending at least some items in un-selected sub-categories; receiving, with one or more processors, item votes on at least some of the candidate items from at least some of the computing devices of the members of the group; and sending, with one or more processors, the group leader a group decision based on the item votes, wherein the decision is determined before all of the group members have voted on all of the items.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the request to initiate a group decision is received by a group decision engine over the Internet; the request is received with a geolocation specified by the group leader, the geolocation being specified by the computing device of the group leader sensing the geolocation or by the group leader explicitly entering the geolocation; the group leader's computing device comprises a mobile computing device, the group leader being a group leader in virtue of sending the request to initiate the group decision; the request to initiate a group decision is received separately from and before the one or more identifiers of members of the group; the one or more identifiers of the members of the group include contact information for each member of the group retrieved from a set of contacts stored in memory of the mobile computing device of the group leader; the group comprises four or more people, each having a different computing device through which the respective group member participates in the decision; the category of decision includes restaurants and the group decision comprises choosing a restaurant from among more than 80 candidate restaurants based on choices made by each member of the group; the sub-categories include sub-categories of restaurants, including varieties of cuisine; the items include restaurants within the sub-categories of restaurants; obtaining a category of decision comprises receiving, from the group leader's computing device, an indication of a selection by the group leader of a category from among categories including at least three of the following categories: restaurants, bars, events, gifts, destinations, lodging, flights, movies, video games, and television shows; sending computing devices of members of the group candidate sub-categories comprises;
determining that the obtained category of decision relates to restaurants and, in response, selecting an application program interface (API) of a restaurant listing from among a plurality of different APIs for different categories of group decisions; and
sending an API request for restaurants to the restaurant listing, the API request requesting restaurants within a threshold distance to the geolocation of the group leader;
receiving a taxonomy of restaurants from the restaurant listing, the taxonomy including the sub-categories of restaurants and the restaurants within each sub-category of restaurant;
determining a plurality of different sequences with which the sub-categories are to be presented for voting on the computing devices of the group members, the sequences indicating an order in which the sub-categories are to be presented one at a time, one after another; and
sending at least part of the respective sequences and the sub-categories of restaurants to the computing devices of the group members;
selecting a sub-category comprises at least one of the following:
determining that a majority of the members of the group voted for the selected sub-category;
determining that the group leader chose the selected sub-category in view of the sub-category of votes; or
determining that more than a threshold amount of members of the group voted for the selected sub-category;
the sub-category votes include choices including at least three of the following: an indication that the group member does not care whether a respective sub-category is chosen, an indication that the group member vetoes a respective sub-category, a vote in favor of a respective sub-category, and a vote against a respective sub-category; receiving sub-category votes on the sub-categories comprises:
receiving a given sub-category vote from a given group member on a given sub-category;
sending instructions to the computing devices of the other group members to change the respective sequences with which the sub-categories are presented for voting such that a vote against the given sub-category causes the given sub-category to be presented later in the respective sequence or a vote in favor of the given sub-category causes the given sub-category to be presented earlier in the respective sequence;
sending the group leader a group decision based on the item votes comprises;
tallying the item votes;
sending the group leader the group decision; and
receiving from the group leader a choice either consistent with or different from the group decision; and
the steps of claim 1 are performed in the order recited.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the category of decision is:
obtained from the group leader's computing device; and indicates a selection by the group leader of a category from among categories including at least two of the following categories: restaurants, bars, events, gifts, destinations, lodging, flights, movies, video games, and television shows.

5 . The method of claim 2 , comprising:
before sending the sub-categories, determining a plurality of different sequences to present at least part of the sub-categories for different group members, such that different group members vote on at least some of the sub-categories in a different order; and sending at least part of the sequence selected for each respective group member to the respective group member's computing device, sending at least part of the sequence including sen

Assignees

• Retailmenot Inc

Inventors

• Wickersham Iii Richard Brewster
• Rawat Dhruv
• Chen Sixue

Classifications

• G06Q10/40 Primary

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• H04W4/021

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• H04L51/02

  using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages · CPC title

• G06Q10/101

  Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services · CPC title

• G06Q30/02

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title