Author Topic: Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry (Read 63938 times)

brett · « **on:** December 04, 2007, 05:36 AM »

Having trouble justifying a decision,
Stop procrastinating and start using Evaluweight !

This started out as a little fun and bit of effort to scam mouser of one of the legendary Cody Mugs.
In the end it is a interesting insight into how we come to a conclusion.

Theory,

Each decision you make, is a 100 percent commitment. Therefore, that decision can be broken down into categories,
and each category represents a part of that 100 percent commitment.
So "evaluweight" lays this all out in a nice and easy grid format.
Simply give each category/feature a percentage mark of how it would impact your total commitment.
Now add the product that you want to compare, and in each category, mark that product out of 10 on how it meets your expectation.

Evaluweight will produce a score at the bottom of each row.

The screenshots will enlighten a little more.
ToDo

Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry
Chocolate

Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry
Printers

Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry
Vehicle

Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry

Some notes
- This is a very basic script designed to con mouser into giving me a Cody mug.
- This is a very basic script that could be improved
- This is a very basic script that provokes the mind
- It is a standalone script, no installer, portable. (AHK source provided)
- Saving is very basic, it saves to the same directory as the file.
- Data is saved in a small csv text file.
- Can be used in making or justifying any decision.

More on the thought process
After using this for a few projects I was surprised to find that Money is not the major influence in a purchasing decision. If the product does not do what I want, I really dont care how much it costs. So rarely was money more then 20% of the factor, mostly around 10 and sometimes less then 5.

Suggestions, Critics, Applause and Rock Throwing all accepted.

The files
A Zip with the four examples above
The AHK Source file

Brett

justice · « **Reply #1 on:** December 04, 2007, 05:42 AM »

I think Evaluweight is a great idea, it reminds me of what My Life Organised does (weighted importance) but it would actually work a lot better because it factors in multiple interests! It would be fantastic if you could think about adding this to a more traditional todolist application to decide what to do next, especially between many tasks. This takes the guesswork out of 'what to do next' so it's a great experiment. I'd just love to try it out in a 'many projects with their own subtasks' setting.

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** December 04, 2007, 09:13 AM »

brett, I *love* it!

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** December 04, 2007, 10:43 AM »

Grett,

one issue with the left-hand importance column.
there is text saying it must sum to 100.. but it's not enforced.

the best solution is to not need it to sum to 100 (which maybe you already do), by simply "normalizing" the calculations by dividing by the sum.

app103 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 05, 2007, 01:46 AM »

I thought this was a fantastic idea when Brett first told me about it...

But what I saw was a great tool that could be used to assist members with writing software reviews for DC.

Now what would be really great, would be if this could produce a nice table in bbcode and/or html, to make it easy to insert it into a review.

brett · « **Reply #5 on:** December 06, 2007, 01:54 PM »

Hi all.

This has stirred up a lot more interest then I first anticipated, and I originally thought it was fun and a bit of a novelty toy.
After seeing this mentioned in a few blogs I had better clean 'Evaluweight' up a bit and add a few items. So here is what is planned.

- 'HTML generate' menu item to generate HTML code. (completed)
- 'BBC generate' menu item to generate HTML code. (30%)
- 'Normalisation' of weighting, allows ANY numbers of weighting to be added. (0%)
- 'file dropdown list' allows quick loading of saved (50%)
- 'save checking' before exit check saved status. (0%)

see what I can do after the weekend. ( i have to work )

Brett

RobC · « **Reply #6 on:** December 07, 2007, 08:16 PM »

Brett,
Any chance that you worked in Broadmeadows Victoria in the 90's ?

Rob

urlwolf · « **Reply #7 on:** December 08, 2007, 03:57 AM »

hehe, in judgment and decision making, this is the 'normative' way of making decisions. What is surprising is that human decisions never correspond to what a model like this (with weights etc) predicts.

i.e., fill the form for any real decision. Take your time picking your weights. Better yet, do it for a past decision. Then, compare what the weighting model says with what you actually picked. Chances are, the two things are not the same

By the way, does ahk have a 'spreadsheet-like' component? Maybe that'd be more convenient than the current grid of textboxes...

Good job!

brett · « **Reply #8 on:** December 10, 2007, 05:48 PM »

Just a quick update because I wanted to have this out at the beginning of this week, and as far as GOE 2007 , it is in the same basket as GTD2006.

- 'HTML generate' menu item to generate HTML code. (completed) [now broken, grrr....]
- 'BBC generate' menu item to generate HTML code. (30%) [see HTML ]
- 'Normalisation' of weighting, allows ANY numbers of weighting to be added. (0%) [completed]
- 'file dropdown list' allows quick loading of saved (50%) [completed]
- 'save checking' before exit check saved status. (0%) [completed]

new
- 'add a comments box to each rating for user notes' [completed]
- 'trying different data save formats, ie csv, txt, ini, custom, Grrrrr.. ' [testing]

hehe, in judgment and decision making, this is the 'normative' way of making decisions. What is surprising is that human decisions never correspond to what a model like this (with weights etc) predicts.

i.e., fill the form for any real decision. Take your time picking your weights. Better yet, do it for a past decision. Then, compare what the weighting model says with what you actually picked. Chances are, the two things are not the same

By the way, does ahk have a 'spreadsheet-like' component? Maybe that'd be more convenient than the current grid of textboxes...

Good job!
-urlwolf (December 08, 2007, 03:57 AM)

Hi Urlwolf

Evaluweight certainly provokes the mind in your own decision making. Because evaluweight is on paper it takes away the emotion factor in the decision.

ahk does not have a real spreadsheet-like component, it does have a listview, but then in-cell editing becomes difficult.

the next release will have a small 'notes' button next to each cell allowing the user to jot down some comments. so I will need to stay with the grid of edit boxes.

Screenshot - 11_12_2007 , 10_27_52 AM.png

Evaluweight - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry

Brett,
Any chance that you worked in Broadmeadows Victoria in the 90's ?

Rob
-RobC (December 07, 2007, 08:16 PM)

Hi Rob, Newcastle and Sydney all my life.

real job requires my attention, post new version as soon as I fix broken bits.

Brett

MaryG · « **Reply #9 on:** January 07, 2008, 06:34 PM »

Very useful, Brett! A great work in progress.

Cheers,
Mary G.

knightindustries · « **Reply #10 on:** January 24, 2008, 05:28 AM »

Thanks heaps Brett.

I'm gonna see if it can be incorporated into my Monthly Reports in a practical useful way and my existing Time Statistics. I've been using a very basic Time Tracking software to track all my tasks everyday for the last year and then compiling them into charts via excel. Its been a great ride. But your little tool could be very interesting.

I'm really hoping I can turn heads with it.

knightindustries · « **Reply #11 on:** January 24, 2008, 05:35 AM »

Brett,

Mmmmm, strange thing happened. I was sending it to my works email address and Gmail cracked a wobbly and said it had a virus. I scanned it with AVG Free and its aok.

So, anyway, I'll transport it via Flash Chip. Just thought you might like to know.

brett · « **Reply #12 on:** January 25, 2008, 05:26 AM »

Hi Knightindustries

AHK is known to sometimes trip Antivirus software, there are numerous reports of false alarms.

If there is ever a concern for anybody, they can download the source and check in a text editor.
Install AHK on the required machine to run the souce direct, or compile using the AHK compiler. All very beginner level.

On a 'evaluweight' front. I have been having nightmares on the best format to save the data files in, but will now concentrate on CSV.

Brett

jenxo · « **Reply #13 on:** July 21, 2008, 09:27 AM »

A month or two after downloading, Symantec Endpoint protection notified me that my version contained W32.SillyDC Trojan. Heads up.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #14 on:** July 21, 2008, 09:32 AM »

A month or two after downloading, Symantec Endpoint protection notified me that my version contained W32.SillyDC Trojan. Heads up.
-jenxo (July 21, 2008, 09:27 AM)

Jenxo: It most certainly didn't just "appear" out of nothing

[rant] It's the usual false positives, originated by the use of autohotkey for programming the applications, combined with the antivirus developers being idiots. Please take the antivirus' advices with a grain of salt, recently more and more virus-free applications are being flagged by idiotic antiviruses

[/rant]

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #15 on:** July 21, 2008, 11:04 PM »

Yes, my own DonationCoder application was flagged as a virus by McAfee, most likely due to it having an AutoHotkey script in it. Shame that once such great software now makes everyone suspicious of everything.

shimond · « **Reply #16 on:** August 29, 2012, 07:16 AM »

awesome download and run it with auto hot key
http://www.autohotkey.com/
no virus

dr_andus · « **Reply #17 on:** January 13, 2014, 09:32 AM »

I've just downloaded the Zip file and got the following AVG alert:

AVG Detection 14-01-13 001.png

dr_andus · « **Reply #18 on:** January 13, 2014, 09:46 AM »

The AHK is fine. Nice tool! Although I had trouble exporting and re-importing into Excel. The columns and the rows got inverted and the column headings weren't aligned, just listed in a row below. Also, the calculated results weren't exported in the text file. Could it be because I only filled in data in the first 3 columns and left column 4 and 5 blank?