Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author. T. A. Runkler, Siemens AG, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739 Munich, Germany,
E-mail: thomas.runkler@siemens.com.
Abstract: Fuzzy pairwise preferences are an important model to specify and process expert opinions. A fuzzy pairwise preference matrix contains degrees of preference of each option over each other option. Such degrees of preference are often numerically specified by domain experts. In decision processes it is highly desirable to be able to analyze such preference structures, in order to answer questions like: Which objects are most or least preferred? Are there clusters of options with similar preference? Are the preferences consistent or partially contradictory? An important approach for such analysis is visualization. The goal is to produce good visualizations of preference matrices in order to better understand the expert opinions, to easily identify favorite or less favorite options, to discuss and address inconsistencies, or to reach consensus in group decision processes. Standard methods for visualization of preferences are matrix visualization and chord diagrams, which are not suitable for larger data sets, and which are not able to visualize clusters or inconsistencies. To overcome this drawback we propose PrefMap, a new method for visualizing preference matrices. Experiments with nine artificial and real–world preference data sets indicate that PrefMap yields good visualizations that allow to easily identify favorite and less favorite options, clusters, and inconsistencies, even for large data sets.
