Product selection apparatus and method

Apparatus for selecting a number of products from a plurality of products comprising:

• storage means containing an information source having a respective product information for each of said plurality of products, each product information comprising a plurality of attribute values each relating to a respective attribute of the product;
• processing means which process each product information so as to calculate a reduction benefit value for each attribute included in the information source wherein the reduction benefit value is a measure of the reduction in the number of products available for selection which will, on average, result if a selection is made between the attribute values in the information source for that attribute;
• selecting means which select automatically the attribute with the reduction benefit value which provides the largest reduction;
• grouping means which group the products according to their respective attribute value for the said automatically selected attribute so as to form a plurality of product groups;
• means which present the product groups for user selection therebetween;
• means which accept user selection of one or more product groups;
• re-calculating means which re-calculate the reduction benefit values for the remaining attributes within the user selected product group or groups;
• remainder selecting means which select automatically a remaining attribute, from the remaining attributes within the user selected product group or groups, with the reduction benefit value which provides the largest reduction;
• remainder grouping means which group the products from the user selected product group or groups according to their respective attribute value for the said automatically selected remaining attribute so as to form a plurality of remaining product groups;
• means which present the remaining product groups for user selection therebetween;
• means which accept the user selection of one or more remaining product groups;
• and
• means which present the products of the user selected remaining product group or groups for final product selection by the user.