Decision Support Tool With Interactive Sliders For Weighting Criteria

The patent introduces an intermediary decision support system that includes a criteria manager, weight manager, and score manager. These intermediary components automatically evaluate requests against multiple criteria and compute weighted scores, mediating between the complex multi-criteria evaluation process and the user's decision-making process. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining high decision accuracy through comprehensive criteria evaluation while reducing the perceived complexity for users through automated processing and intuitive presentation of results.

The patent implements self-service mechanisms where the system automatically performs weight normalization, score calculation, and criterion evaluation based on user-defined weights. The weight manager automatically normalizes weights to ensure they sum to 100%, and the score manager automatically computes weighted scores for each criterion. This allows users to exercise control by simply setting weights without needing to understand or manually perform the complex calculations, thereby improving ease of operation while managing calculation complexity through automation.

The patent implements preliminary action by pre-calculating and storing criterion scores, weight normalizations, and evaluation rules before they are needed for actual decision-making. The system maintains a library of pre-processed criterion evaluations that can be quickly retrieved and combined during real-time interactions. When users adjust weights or add new requests, the system performs incremental updates rather than complete recalculations, leveraging the pre-computed data to achieve fast responsiveness while minimizing actual processing time during user interactions.