FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field of systems and processes for facilitating the gamification of data, for example, providing various scenarios and actionable elements to allow a user to implement at least one preferred or optimal outcome of a scenario in a real-world setting.

BACKGROUND

In an increasingly data driven world, individuals and businesses rely on data to make informed decisions about real-world events. However, large volumes of information can often lead to a paralysis of choice where the optimum outcome is obscured. In some situations, the results from a set of actions prove less than successful, leaving an individual wondering if the actions taken were ineffective or there were some other variables affecting the outcome that were unaccounted for. Further, the synergistic effects of certain variables or actions may either boost the end result, or equally may have detrimental effects.

Often similar scenarios facing an individual have been previously encountered by others. Accordingly, valuable advice and collective experience that would greatly help in cutting away unnecessary data and identifying optimum outcomes is left untapped. Often the user is unaware of the scenarios previously experienced. Alternatively, due to privacy issues, the user is unable to access this wealth of collective experience in order to learn and implement a better decision process in a real-world setting.

This overwhelming amount of information is particularly prevalent in marketing and advertising. In an increasingly crowded consumer marketplace, the volume of choice for products and services, together with the channels by which these are advertised, frequently leads to consumer fatigue. This leads third parties to fight for attention and aggressively push their products and services, thus exacerbating the problem. Often, various third parties attempt to monitor an individual's actions in order to anticipate which goods and services would be most relevant to a user and therefore direct appropriate advertising to the user. However, this provides inherently obsolete information since they show what has just occurred, rather than what a user is expected to do. For example, if an individual has searched for and bought an item online, any advertisements to similar items are now obsolete, leaving the third party guessing as to what the user is looking for next. This wastes the individual's attention resources, compounds consumer fatigue and leads to an inefficient use of advertising resources.

Accordingly, there remains a need for a system and a process that is able to present the ‘gamification’ of variables pertinent to a given scenario in an easily understood form, whereby a user may adjust, modify, manipulate, or ‘play around’ with certain outcomes in a scenario. Once the user has achieved the optimum scenario or desired outcome, the system then facilitates the implementation of the scenario or outcome in a real-world setting. The system may use data from similar scenarios, information from other users, previous scenarios created by the user, data pertinent to the user, or the like, in order to monitor trends, better advise the user, and improve predicted outcomes while maintaining users privacy. The system may also consider if there are any penalties associated with an activity or trend to improve predicted outcomes. Accordingly, the improved success of the outcome will entice further and continued use of the gamification system. Based on the user's implemented actions, the system may be able to determine which goods or services are most pertinent to the user and when the user will benefit most from these goods or services. Accordingly, the system may be able to provide temporally relevant advertising or marketing communications to the user. This can reduce consumer fatigue and increase the effectiveness of the advertisements presented.

SUMMARY

The present systems and processes are directed to providing various optimum scenarios or desired outcomes to a user based on specific variable channels. The system provides a gamified interface to facilitate the decision process for a user. The gamified interface may include providing the most extreme outcomes possible, as well as at least one estimated outcomes recommended outcome, range of outcomes, or combinations thereof. Once an optimum or preferred scenario or outcome is achieved, the system also provides various actionable elements to the user in order to implement the scenario in a real-world situation. The system may use these scenarios to predict advantageous scenarios for the same or other users, providing anonymized variables that would otherwise be unavailable to the user. The system may also use the implemented scenarios to provide temporally appropriate advertising or similar marketing communication. The system may also provide temporally appropriate alerts or notifications.

In some embodiments, the system may include variables entered directly by the user or may be provided by a third party. Data provided by a third party may be further modified by the user. The types of variables entered to the system may include personal, demographic, geographic, economic, historical, social, behavioral, and/or psychographic information. The system may then present one or more scenarios or outcomes to the user based on the variables provided and predetermined parameters or rules. The system may modify these predetermined parameters or rules based on trends identified from the variables. The system may also provide information from other users of the system from previous scenarios or outcomes to identify trends and predict optimal outcomes specific for the user. The system may also present the information in a form whereby the significance of the different variables on the outcome are indicated. This automatic provision of accurate scenarios will entice further and continued use of the system.

In some embodiments, the system may also present a gamification of variables by presenting the variables to the user so that a user may then modify, manipulate or ‘play around’ with the scenario within a gamified interface. By using the gamified interface provided by the system, a user may modify the desired outcome or modify one or more of the variables in the scenario. The system may react to and reanalyze the changes, effected by the user, in the gamified graphical interface to provide alternate scenarios or outcomes. Once the user has achieved an optimum scenario or preferred outcome the system may then provide a means, such as actionable elements to implement these changes in a real-world setting. The actionable elements may for example allow a user to save, print, e-mail the scenario and associated parameters, or import or transfer the information to another tool within the system. The actionable element may also allow a user to directly implement the optimum or preferred scenario to a real-world setting. The actionable elements may provide access to third parties with which the optimum or preferred scenario may be implemented. In some embodiments, the actionable elements may provide instructions to the third parties, and these instructions may be triggered based on time dependent or action dependent triggers to effectively implement the optimum or preferred scenario in a real-world setting. The system may also further leverage the actioned scenarios to predict time appropriate advertising or notifications for the user.

In some embodiments, a method for presenting gamified scenarios and temporally appropriate advertising is provided which includes obtaining one or more variables for initiating a scenario; analyzing the one or more variables according to one or more predetermined rule sets to provide a first outcome to a scenario in a gamified user interface; receiving a first input, via the gamified user interface, that modifies the first outcome to provide a preferred outcome; analyzing the preferred outcome according to one or more predetermined rule sets; providing a second scenario which displays proposed changes to the variables that are required to achieve the preferred outcome; in response to receiving a second input via an actionable element, providing instructions for modifying the one or more variables according to the proposed changes in order to implement the preferred outcome in a real-world setting; and providing on or more advertisements based on the instructions for modifying the one or more variables.

In some embodiments, the method further includes at least one of primary, secondary or tertiary variables. The primary variables include variables entered by a user and include at least one of personal, demographic, geographic, economic, historical, social, behavioral, psychographic information. The secondary variables include information stored, derived or generated by the system and include at least one of information from other users, previous scenarios generated by other users, information generated by the implementation engine, information generated by the predictive scenario engine, or information generated by the advertising engine. The tertiary variables include information provided by one or more third parties and include at least one of personal, demographic, geographic, economic, historical, social, behavioral, psychographic information.

In some embodiments, the method further includes receiving input via an actionable element and providing instructions for modifying the one or more variables, which are provided to a user or to a third party to implement the preferred outcome in a real world setting. In some embodiments, the method further includes obtaining one or more variables for initiating a scenario which is determined according to trends identified in at least one of the primary, secondary, or tertiary variables. In some embodiments, the method further includes providing notifications or alerts to the user which are temporally appropriate to one or more instructions such that the notifications or alerts are provided within a predetermined time frame. In some embodiments, the method further includes advertisements which are temporally appropriate to one or more instructions such that the advertisements are provided within a predetermined time frame.

In some embodiments, a non-transitory computer readable medium is provided which, when processed by a hardware processor, provides a scenario via a gamified user interface, and provides advertisements and notifications to a user which are temporally relevant to implemented actions from the scenario. The non-transitory computer readable medium including an implementation engine to retrieve variables, the implementation engine configured to analyze the variables according to a set of predetermined rules and weightings, and to generate a scenario including a primary marker associated with an outcome, wherein the scenario includes a gamified user interface, and wherein the outcome includes a current outcome based on the variables initially retrieved by the implementation engine. The non-transitory computer readable medium including a predictive scenario engine configured to analyze the variables to determine a range of possible preferred outcomes within the scenario. The non-transitory computer readable medium including an advertising engine configured to provide advertisements to the user.

In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes a gamified user interface which includes a primary marker that allows a user to modify the outcome of the scenario to a preferred outcome, and includes secondary markers that indicate the range of possible preferred outcomes. In some embodiments, the implementation engine generates a second scenario and provides instructions for changing the variables that will achieve the preferred outcome as determined by the user, subsequent to the user modifying the outcome to a preferred outcome. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes secondary markers that indicate a range of preferred outcomes and are determined by trends identified by the predictive scenario engine.

In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes actionable elements where the gamified user interface provides instructions for modifying the variables to achieve the preferred outcome as determined by the user. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes an advertising engine that provides advertisements which are temporally appropriate to instructions such that the advertisements are provided within a predetermined time frame. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes a gamified user interface which provides alerts that are temporally appropriate to the instructions such that the alerts are provided within a predetermined time frame.

In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes variables including at least one of personal, demographic, geographic, economic, historical, social, behavioral, trend, or psychographic information. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes a gamified user interface which allows a user to repeatedly modify the outcome until a preferred outcome is reached. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes a scenario and actionable elements which provides access with one or more third parties. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes a gamified user interface and provides icons that are associated with a primary marker which indicates goods or services that will be available when the preferred outcome is achieved.

In some embodiments, a network device is provided including a hardware processor, and memory communicatively coupled to the hardware processor. The device including (i) an implementation engine to retrieve variables, the implementation engine configured to analyze the variables according to a set of predetermined rules and weightings, and to generate a scenario including a primary marker associated with an outcome, wherein the scenario includes a gamified user interface, and wherein the outcome includes a current outcome based on the variables initially retrieved by the implementation engine. (ii) A predictive scenario engine configured to analyze the variables to determine a range of possible preferred outcomes within the scenario. (iii) An advertising engine to provide advertisements and notifications to a user which are temporally appropriate to instructions generated by the scenario via actionable elements such that the advertisements and notifications are provided within a predetermined time frame.

In some embodiments, a network device is provided including variables which include at least one of personal, demographic, geographic, economic, historical, social, behavioral, trend, or psychographic information. In some embodiments, a network device is provided including actionable elements that provide access to one or more third parties to implement the preferred scenario. In some embodiments, a network device is provided including a scenario which further provides one or more icons associated with the outcome that indicates to a user the good or services associated with the outcome and allows a user to access details about the goods or services, or access to third parties that provide the goods or services. In some embodiments, a network device is provided including a scenario which further provides one or more icons associated with the range of possible preferred outcomes of the implementable scenario that indicates to a user the good or services associated with range of possible preferred outcomes and allows a user to access details about the goods or services, or access to third parties that provide the goods or services.

