Consensus Support Interface for Visualizing Multi-Round Agreement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing online consensus building systems lack support for determining a consensus plan that all participants can satisfy, as they rely on majority voting and are difficult to manage without a skilled facilitator, leading to unsatisfactory discussions.
Innovation Solution
A consensus building support device that organizes participant opinions in a structured manner, integrating them into rounds and displaying integrated opinion groups, allowing facilitators and participants to visualize consensus achievement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If majority voting is used to determine the option, then the decision process is simple and quick, but it is difficult to determine a consensus plan that all participants can satisfy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the discussion process into multiple rounds, where each round focuses on specific aspects of the options. Participants go through iterative cycles of proposing, discussing, and refining options, allowing the group to gradually converge on a consensus rather than making a single majority decision. This segmentation enables both speed (through structured rounds) and quality (through comprehensive consideration of all viewpoints).
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where participants receive information about how their opinions are aggregated and how the consensus is evolving. The system provides feedback on option popularity, discussion trends, and convergence status, allowing participants to adjust their positions and understand the group dynamics. This feedback loop enables the system to achieve true consensus while maintaining efficient decision-making through transparent progress tracking.
2Ease of operation
If online consent systems are used without skilled facilitation, then the system is easy to operate, but the discussion becomes difficult to manage and consensus building is ineffective
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables the system to self-manage the consensus building process through automated opinion aggregation, round management, and consensus detection. The system automatically tracks participant opinions, manages discussion rounds, identifies convergence points, and determines when consensus is achieved, eliminating the need for skilled human facilitators while maintaining high efficiency. Participants can easily join and contribute without requiring facilitation expertise.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical role of human facilitators with an automated computational system. The system uses algorithms to manage discussion rounds, aggregate opinions, detect consensus patterns, and control the flow of discussion. This substitution of human facilitation with automated mechanisms maintains ease of operation for participants while dramatically improving consensus building efficiency through precise, data-driven management.
3Adaptability or versatility
If opinions are collected without structured organization, then the process is simple and inclusive, but it is difficult to visualize consensus achievement and manage the discussion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments opinions into structured categories and organizes them by discussion round, option, and participant group. This segmentation allows the system to maintain flexibility in collecting diverse opinions while simultaneously organizing them into visualizable patterns. The structured arrangement enables clear visualization of consensus achievement through aggregated data displays, showing how opinions converge across different groups and rounds.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses visual indicators and color-coding to represent different opinion groups, consensus levels, and discussion stages. The interface dynamically changes visual states to show emerging consensus, dominant options, and areas of agreement/disagreement. This visual encoding transforms raw opinion data into intuitive graphical representations, making consensus achievement immediately visible while maintaining flexible collection of diverse viewpoints.
Data Source
AI summary
A consensus building support device includes: processor configured to execute a program; a storage device configured to store the program; and a communication interface configured to communicate with a plurality of communication terminals used by a plurality of participants. The processor executes: acquisition processing of receiving, from the communication terminals, an opinion related to a discussion for determining any one option from among a plurality of options, as a result of transmitting information related to the discussion to the plurality of communication terminals; specifying processing of specifying an option selected by the participant for each opinion received by the acquisition processing; combining processing of combining the opinions based on the option specified by the specifying processing; and transmission processing of transmitting, to the communication terminals, a combination result obtained by combining the opinions by the combining processing.