Grant: Engage Grants Program

In order to be spending more prudently, consumers need to be equipped with information such as what products they own; the products' features; warranty information; and resale value. As products are purchased over the years (from thousands of items in a household to millions in a corporation), such information may not be easily accessible when it comes time to make another purchase. Warranty Life allows its users to enter information about the products that they own or recently purchased into the system using structured input forms or by submitting their electronic receipts to the Web site after which a human operator will input the information on behalf of the user; this information will become later accessible and searchable to/by the user. However, there are challenges that impede this process, including: 1) the numerosity of the items that each user (e.g., a large corporation) owns makes the initial information input process slow and tedious; and 2) the use of different terminologies to describe similar items and products (e.g., laptop and notebook) causes ambiguity in product description and inhibits efficient product search and retrieval. This research project attempts to address these two major issues.