Controversiality Index for E-Commerce Offerings
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems fail to accurately identify and quantify the controversiality of electronic merchant offerings, which can lead to misleading information for consumers and merchants, as traditional rating systems often result in an overall average rating that masks both positive and negative responses, neglecting the potential impact of controversial offerings on sales.
Innovation Solution
A system that calculates a 'controversiality index' using scaled customer feedback data and sales volume, incorporating standard deviation and weighting factors to measure the extent of controversiality, allowing for more nuanced understanding and filtering of offerings, and providing consumers and merchants with a numerical ranking of controversiality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional average rating systems are used to evaluate offerings, then the system is simple and easy to understand, but the information becomes inaccurate and misleading by masking both positive and negative responses
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the overall rating into separate positive and negative response components. Instead of providing a single average rating, the system calculates and displays a controversiality index that separately identifies offerings with both positive and negative feedback, segmenting the evaluation to reveal hidden controversy that would be masked in traditional averaging.
Solution Approach 2:
The controversiality index acts as an intermediary metric between traditional ratings and consumer decision-making. It mediates by providing additional contextual information about controversy without replacing the existing rating system, allowing consumers to understand both the quality (through ratings) and the divisiveness (through controversiality index) of offerings.
2Reliability
If controversial offerings are filtered out or removed, then consumer experience is improved by avoiding divisive content, but loss of information occurs by removing potentially valuable controversial offerings
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary identification and labeling of controversial offerings before consumers encounter them. By calculating and displaying the controversiality index in advance, consumers can make informed decisions about whether to engage with controversial content, rather than encountering it unexpectedly or having it arbitrarily filtered.
Solution Approach 2:
The controversiality index provides feedback to consumers about the nature of an offering's reception. This feedback mechanism allows consumers to understand that an offering is controversial without preventing access, enabling them to weigh the potential value against the potential for divisive content in their own decision-making.
Data Source
AI summary
The controversiality of an offering in a computer implemented system is computed based on user satisfaction feedback. A controversiality index can be provided to indicate the extent to which the offering is controversial.