Undecided? Try the decision engine Hunch

dan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:09:24 +0000

The newly launched decision making engine hunch.com has already helped some of us here solve a few long standing personal dilemmas! The site helps visitors make decisions based on how they answer questions from user created data. Hunch claims you only need to answer 10 sample questions for it to start delivering customised recommendations. It also functions as a social networking site, allowing you to follow other users and topics to see how they evolve.

There is an algorithm running in the background that learns more about your personality as you use the site. First, it tries to find a question which will discriminate well among the remaining possible decision outcomes for you – thus filtering the remaining choices from ‘many’ to ‘fewer’. Second, the algorithm looks for a question which can help optimise and rank the remaining decision results to present you with the ones you’ll like the most. It’s trying to ensure that you’ll like outcome number 1 better than outcome number 5. Basically, Hunch utilises information that it knows about you to improve the relevancy of results.

Although not really based on personality, and more of a troubleshooting question, the example below answers that age old question…

Obviously, steps have been removed in getting to the result,
but… it looks like it might be Bakelite!

Masters Allen News » decision engine

Undecided? Try the decision engine Hunch