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Decision Tradeoff Using Example-Critiquing and Constraint Programming

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Abstract

We consider constructive preference elicitation for decision aid systems in applications such as configuration or electronic catalogs. We are particularly interested in supporting decision tradeoff, where preferences are revised in response to the available outcomes. In several user-involved decision aid systems we designed in the past, we were able to observe three generic tradeoff strategies that people like to use. We show how a preference model based on soft constraints is well-suited for supporting these strategies. Such a framework provides an agile preference model particularly powerful for preference revision during tradeoff analysis. We further show how to integrate the constraint-based preference model with an interaction model called example-critiquing. We report on user studies which show that this model offers significant advantages over the commonly used ranked-list model, especially when the decision problem becomes complex.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Computer Interaction Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland. Email

    Pearl Pu

  2. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), CH-1015 vLausanne, Switzerland. Email

    Boi Faltings

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  1. Pearl Pu
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  2. Boi Faltings
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Pu, P., Faltings, B. Decision Tradeoff Using Example-Critiquing and Constraint Programming. Constraints 9, 289–310 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CONS.0000049205.05581.24

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