Guess My Malfunction By Guitarman (Read 1,016 times)

[Guitarman]

About a thousand or so years ago when I was a dashing young genius, I was teaching a computer class.  I used to have the students write this guessing game.  Guess the Animal.

The program would ask you if it was a mammal and if you said yes, it would guess Tiger.  If you said No, it would ask for a question that would determine the difference between Tiger and whatever animal you chose.  Eventually it would learn enough answers to figure out any animal you could come up with in just a few questions.

Why can't we do this same thing with scooter diagnostics?  It may not always get everything right, but it would take care of the basics right off.  It would eliminate asking stuff like, Did you put gas in it?

Now, if we did try this, the questions have to be grouped into logical patterns.  With animals, they are in genus, species, type, color, ....  You get the idea. 

Ideas? Questions? Comments?

[cyborg]

the only problem i see with this postulation is we are dealing with people that don't even know the names of parts and have little if not no mechanical aptitude and generally what i see is the scooter they bought is their first attempt at self repair,,,,phrases like what is this doohicky,,or thingamabob,,,make it difficult to make a diagnosis based on faulty or erroneous information,,,it would be like asking a 2 year old the animal questions,,,they simply do not know,,

[Guitarman]

Any graphic artists out there that would care to donate time to this? We could add animated graphics to it that show exactly what they should be looking at.

Of course it's not a perfect idea, but.... Who knows, it could solve a lot of problems for many. And if nothing else, it would be a great diagnostic tool for the rest of us.

[tvnacman]

The title of the post made me think it was your mental defect we were guessing. I see very different here now. I'm with cyborg here with people not knowing enough to be helped, that is when they first get here. I would think a questionnaire with pictures (kinda like when you enter your credit card and they want the number from the back of the card) they show a pic of where to find it . With that said we would need some basic info, engine size millage. Symptom then depending on the type of defect it could get a little tricky. For instance when I hear of an electric start not working, my first question is do the brake lights work, horn, turn signals.

John

[Guitarman]

John, Those questions are the kind that would be entered as diagnostic questions for the software to 'guess' what might be wrong. Each question should have pictures of how to do that check. When you finish checking that, then you check it off, YES or NO. Then the software would ask the next question.

And thinking about it, we could sell it. LOL

[jct842]

Didn't they used to call them things a "flow chart"?

[Guitarman]

May 14, 2015 18:46:29 GMT -6 jct842 said:

Didn't they used to call them things a "flow chart"?

Yep.  Learnt all about them back in computer school in the early years.
Kind of funny now, but back then we were taught that any programmer not using a flow chart was just asking for trouble.  Years later I met Bill Gates and as we were discussing stuff, I happened to ask if I could see the flow charts.  He looked at me and more or less said that they don't need them. 
And this is after I got almost the same response from Steve Jobs at a computer convention.

And people wonder why computers have so many issues.

[JR]

May 14, 2015 3:51:44 GMT -6 tvnacman said:

The title of the post made me think it was your mental defect we were guessing. I see very different here now. I'm with cyborg here with people not knowing enough to be helped, that is when they first get here. I would think a questionnaire with pictures (kinda like when you enter your credit card and they want the number from the back of the card) they show a pic of where to find it . With that said we would need some basic info, engine size millage. Symptom then depending on the type of defect it could get a little tricky. For instance when I hear of an electric start not working, my first question is do the brake lights work, horn, turn signals.

John

For instance when I hear of an electric start not working, my first question is do the brake lights work, horn, turn signals.

My first question is "does the battery have any charge or is it dead?"

[novaraptor]

well, actually, "expert system" better defines this type of q&a software. The problem is indeed that the user has to know the right terms to use one well. A non computer based text version would be a checklist with "if yes, go to question xx, if no, continue..". I've personally always viewed forums as a vast expert system. Granted that the search functions are primitive, if used properly with the right terms, not bad. It should be possible to generate a questionnaire as a front end interface to the search engine that could make it more friendly. Anyone?? Anyone??