Evaluation of Options

With multi-attribute models, options are evaluated in the following way:

1. Each option is represented by a vector of basic attribute values.

2. The values of each option are aggregated in a bottom-up way according to the defined structure of the model and corresponding utility functions.

3. The overall evaluation of an option is finally obtained as the value of one or more root attributes of the model.

On this basis, the decision maker can compare and rank the options, and possibly identify and select the best one.

In the evaluation, undefined values of basic attributes, denoted ‘*’, are interpreted as sets of all possible values that can be assigned to corresponding attributes. There, DEXi evaluates options trying all these values and keeps track of the evaluation results in these cases. Therefore, an evaluation result is not necessarily represented by a single attribute value, but can also be a set of values.

In DEXi, results of option evaluation are shown on its Evaluation Page, as well as in charts and reports.

Example

See the evaluation of cars using the Car Evaluation model.