The invention includes a system for product selection, the system including:
a CPU; a memory operatively connected to the CPU, the memory containing a program
adapted to be executed by the CPU and the CPU and memory cooperatively adapted
for presenting a user interface and expert interface to an expert system for product
selection; a expert-interface code segment embodied on a computer-readable medium
configured and adapted for: creating and modifying via a graphical user interface
a graphically-displayed tree structure representing a plurality of product applications;
associating and modifying via a graphical user interface one or more use condition
with each node of the tree structure; and associating and modifying via a graphical
user interface one or more suitability ratings for a plurality of applications;
creating and modifying via a graphical user interface a list of products associating
and modifying via a graphical user interface one or more product with each leaf
node of the tree structure; associating via a graphical user interface use condition
choices with each product associating via a graphical user interface suitability
ratings for each product a user-interface code segment embodied on a computer-readable
medium configured and adapted for selecting via a graphical-use interface a path
in the tree structure, and for displaying on the same window of the graphical-use
interface: the products associated with the leaf node of the selected path; the
use conditions associated with each node of the selected path; and the product
usability suitability indicators associated with each node of the selected path;
selecting via the same window of the graphical-use interface one or more of the
use conditions associated with the nodes of the selected path and for entering
the user-defined relative importance of the product usability suitability indicators
for the intended application of the products associated with the leaf nodes of
the selected path; comparing the selected use conditions with the displayed products,
where products not having such selected use conditions as attributes are filtered
out of the displayed list of products; comparing the entered relative importance
of the product usability suitability indicators with the product usability suitability
indicators associated with the displayed products, associating a score with each
displayed product indicating the correlation of the comparison, and displaying
the score with the product; and printing the resulting product list, corresponding
suitability scores, selected tree path, selected use conditions, and entered relative
importance of product usability suitability indicators.