Patent Application
20060216680
Partners in a relationship sometimes experience issues in various areas of their relationship that may adversely impact their relationship. For example, they may have different expectations, may be inconsiderate towards their partner or may poorly communicate. Relationship counseling is one method of developing the partners and thus improving the relationship. However, relationship counseling may be inconvenient. The partners may have to go to a counselor's office which is far from their home or work. The counselor's operating hours may conflict with the partners' home and work commitments. Relationship counseling may also be expensive.
A system to develop users as an effective partner in a relationship would be both beneficial and advantageous to the user, the partner and the satisfaction they experience in the relationship. If the user and the system were both connected to some network, then the user could access the system remotely. The system could also be constructed to be accessible at all times for the user's convenience. It would also be useful if the system was relatively inexpensive and affordable for many users.
Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.
The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a composition of matter, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computer network wherein program instructions are sent over optical or electronic communication links. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention.
A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.
A system to distribute relationship improvement content is disclosed. The system and user exchange information through one or more communication channels. Psychometric data is collected about the partners regarding themselves as individuals or in the context of the relationship. This data is used to characterize each of the partners against empirical data previously collected from a multitude of subjects. In general this is performed for each partner across multiple aspects. In some embodiments the characteristic is an approximation of a partner's satisfaction. The partners' characteristics are then compared to one another to obtain a comparison characteristic. The comparison characteristic may be obtained for more than one aspect. Based on some combination of characteristics and comparison characteristics, content to improve the relationship is selected. Each user reviews the content to improve herself as a partner in the relationship. After the user reviews the content, further collection of psychometric data and content delivery follow.
For the purpose of example, a relationship improvement system is described in detail below. Users of the system are two people in a preexisting romantic relationship in this embodiment. In some embodiments, one spouse may be a user of the service while the other spouse does not participate. In some embodiments, the nature of the relationship may be a non-romantic relationship. Families, friends, or coworkers are some groups of people who may be users of the service. The users of the service are one or more people. In some embodiments, the user is currently not in a relationship and a simulated relationship is created by the service. For example, two users of the service with no preexisting connection jointly participate to improve themselves with practice partners. A user may also participate with a simulated partner. A user is someone who employs the relationship improvement service while a partner is someone in a relationship. Potentially, someone is a partner but not a user (for example, the absent spouse), or a user is not a partner in an actual relationship (for example, the user in a simulated relationship). These are examples of the users and are not meant to be exhaustive.
A user at remote unit 106 and the relationship improvement service 104 can communicate as shown by the arrow labeled 108. Examples of communications include exchange of electronic mail, web pages and answers to inquiries on web pages. A user at another remote unit 106 can also communicate with the relationship improvement service as indicated by the arrow labeled 110. One user can also communicate directly with another user as shown by the arrow labeled 112. The methods described in this embodiment can be performed using the communications illustrated by 108, 110 and 112. However, other forms of communication can be used including normal mail services, phone calls and directly visiting the relationship improvement service.
There are many mechanisms to collect psychometric data about partners in a relationship. Some embodiments use queries to collect psychometric data. Some embodiments use simulations. In some embodiments, multiple mechanisms are used to collect psychometric data. Queries and simulations are not the only mechanisms to obtain psychometric data. Puzzles and games are used in some embodiments. These are a few examples of the mechanisms used to collect psychometric data.
In some embodiments, there are two responders to the queries and they are the users of the relationship improvement service. Sometimes there is only one user and that user responds in place of their partner to obtain psychometric data pertaining to the absent partner. In some embodiments, a responder is not one of the partners in the relationship. It may be an ex-girlfriend, a friend, a co-worker or close relation. A non-partner responder may be in addition to or in place of one of the partners. Responders to queries about a given partner are not limited to that partner.
Selection and administration of the queries to the responders varies according to the embodiment. In some embodiments, the queries administered to the responders are different. Conversely, in some embodiments the same queries are administered. The responders may simultaneously review the queries and provide a single response, or they may review the queries independently. An adaptive process is applied in some embodiments to select the queries. An initial set of responses to queries are evaluated and based on the evaluation a subsequent set of queries are selected and administered. In some embodiments the user indicates areas of their relationship to improve and queries relating to that area are selected. These are some examples of how the queries are selected and administered.
The queries pertain to a partner as an individual or within the context of the relationship. As described above, a user is someone who uses the relationship improvement service. A partner refers to someone in a relationship. Sometimes a partner is also a user (for example, if both people in a relationship use the relationship improvement service both are partners as well as users) and sometimes a partner is not a user (for example, a person who does not use the relationship development service but whose spouse does). Query 200 asks the responder to rate how well the statement “I enjoy a good joke” applies to a partner. This pertains to a partner as an individual. The statement “My partner and I laugh at the same jokes” pertains to a partner within the context of the relationship. In this embodiment there are 29 individual factors and 10 relationship categories for which the partners are evaluated. The individual factors and relationship categories are more generally referred to as aspects. An individual factor is one aspect of a partner as an individual. A relationship category is one aspect of a partner in the context of the relationship. Each of the individual factors and relationship categories has queries associated with them. In this embodiment, the queries are only associated with one individual factor or relationship category. The queries for the 29 individual factors and 10 relationship categories are used to evaluate multiple characteristics of the partners and the relationship.
The psychometric data about a partner is quantized for the relationship improvement service to work with in this embodiment. The possible responses to query 200 and queries 204 through 208 of
The psychometric data used to evaluate a partner is collected from a variety of sources. In some embodiments, the evaluation for an absent partner utilizes psychometric data collected from users on behalf of their absent partner. In some embodiments, the user is instructed to select the response that is the most accurate description of their partner. In some embodiments, the user is instructed to respond as if they were their partner. Embodiments with non-partner responders may incorporate that data as well. Collection of psychometric data used for characteristic evaluation is not limited to data collected from the partner in question. Rather, the psychometric data about the partner in question may be collected from a variety of responders.
In this embodiment, the scores approximate a partner's satisfaction in an aspect. The types are therefore generalizations of satisfaction levels for that aspect. For example, one partner may be very satisfied in a relationship category while the other partner is moderately satisfied. In some embodiments, the scores estimated are not measures of satisfaction. The scores may represent how much or how little an aspect is representative of a partner. The scores in some embodiments are a measurement of how much a partner values those aspects in herself and her relationship. In some embodiments the scores represent different things for each aspect. For each individual factor or relationship category, the partner is assigned to one of the 5 types based on their score and the range of scores for the 5 types. This process is repeated for each of the partners for each of the aspects. The score for a partner for an aspect can more generally be called a characteristic. Since the collected psychometric data pertains to a partner as an individual or in the context of the relationship, characteristics likewise apply to a partner as an individual or within the context of the relationship. Characteristics do not consider the psychometric data collected for the other partner.
In some embodiments, the empirical data is collected using queries asking subjects about themselves and their relationships. Some of the queries ask subjects to rate their satisfaction in their relationships. The set of queries or even the method to collect the empirical data may change over time. In some embodiments, collection of empirical data is ongoing and the subjects are not users of the relationship improvement service. These are some example of collecting empirical data and are not exhaustive.
To estimate a partner's score, an estimation function is created and applied. In this embodiment, a function is created based on the empirical data, where the inputs to the function are the quantized responses (excluding those pertaining to satisfaction) and the output is a score approximating satisfaction. This function may be a matrix, a neural network or a linear combination of terms. In some embodiments, algorithms are applied to best fit the estimation function to the empirical data. Parameters are adjusted so if empirical inputs are entered, the estimation function outputs an approximation of the empirical output. In some embodiments there is an estimation function for each individual factor or relationship characteristic. An estimation function to generate a score from quantized responses is thus created and used.
Aspects in this embodiment, either pertaining to the individual or within the context of the relationship, are a fixed and predefined set. This embodiment will evaluate all partners across the same 10 relationship categories and 29 individual factors. In some embodiments, the aspects are selected from a predefined set and are a subset of all possible aspects. For example, the relationship improvement service selects 3 aspects for the user to focus on. In some embodiments the user is allowed to select aspects to improve. Evaluating a subset may reduce the amount of content selected which the user will review. Using a subset may also result in selecting content that has the most incremental benefit to the partners. This may be useful in an application where users want to improve their relationship at an accelerated rate. In general, the partners are evaluated across a set of aspects.
In this embodiment, relationship content is selected using comparative characteristics. That is, the evaluations of both partners are considered in selecting relationship improvement content. In this embodiment the relationship content is selected based on the difference between the two partner's evaluations as well as the difference between their evaluation and the norm. The content for Type A and B partners would thus be different than content for Type D and E partners. Although both examples are only 1 type away from each other, they are different extremes of the normative. Relationship content also reflects how far apart two partners are in terms of type. The content for two partners who are the same type will be different than content for partners who are different extremes. In this example, the lookup tables for each relationship category are unique and content may be selected in more than one instance. For example, in lookup table 612, Video 1 is selected if both users are Type F, or if one is Type F and the other is Type G. Some embodiments organize their lookup tables differently. Relationship content is thus created and organized to address a specific comparative characteristic.
There are other variations to relationship improvement content. Some embodiments select different content for the partners to review. Some embodiments do not include individual content for the user. In some embodiments the delivery method of the content is in-person. In some embodiments the delivery method of the content is via a website. These are some examples of relationship improvement content and its delivery to the user.
Three months after the user begins using the service, a subsequent round of psychometric data collection and evaluation is performed in this embodiment. Different collection and evaluation methods may be employed in the subsequent round. For example, initially a simulation is used to collect data but subsequently a set of queries is used. Some embodiments employ the same methods but subsequently administer a different implementation of the method. For example, the set of queries administered is different. A combination of the initial psychometric data and current psychometric data is used to evaluate characteristics for the individual factors and relationship categories. In this embodiment only the current psychometric data is used for characteristic evaluation. After evaluation, the comparison characteristic is obtained using the current evaluations. The service then makes the initial results and current results available to the user. Improvement is thus quantified and demonstrated to the user. Positive feedback to the user may encourage and motive the user to continue developing their relationship.
In some embodiments, subsequent collection of psychometric data and evaluation is an ongoing process. Rather than subsequently collecting and reevaluating one time after the user begins, some embodiments continuously do this. For example, the user may review some content for a relationship category and then be reevaluated for that category. They then review other improvement content. Some embodiments subsequently collect psychometric data and reevaluate on an event driven basis while some embodiments do this on a time driven basis. These are some examples and are not exhaustive of how the service subsequently collects psychometric data and reevaluates the user.
Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limited to the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementing the invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and not restrictive.
