Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F8/00—Arrangements for software engineering
  • G06F8/30—Creation or generation of source code
  • G06F8/38—Creation or generation of source code for implementing user interfaces

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a method for making user-system interaction independent of the application and the interaction media.
• the processes for managing the interaction between users and the system are currently distributed between the application itself, namely the component responsible for rendering the services for which the system has designed, and the media for interaction with the system, that is to say the component or components responsible for creating the interface that allows users to access these services.
• the interaction processes are frequently deeply buried in one or the other of these components and nested with the processes of the application or interfaces, which makes it difficult to identify them as an interaction process. full-fledged. This dissemination of interaction processes is due to the absence of a clear separation between applications and their interfaces in traditional systems.
• the subject of the present invention is a method which makes it possible, within the framework of the interaction between an application and interaction media, to easily adapt the system for implementing the interaction to the application and to the media. interaction, as well as any change in the context of the interaction, in particular during a physical or logical change of use, taking into account new users, new terminals and when adding or adding modification of application services.
• the method of the invention making the interaction independent of the application and the interaction media, is characterized in that a container is created in which at least one of the following representations of the context is stored.
• interaction representation of terminals that can be used by users, representation of action methods, representation of methods of perception of information exchanges by users; representation of user activity, representation of context, representation of expected services, and it is characterized by the fact that the CIPS ensures interaction using representations to build, adapt and manipulate knowledge bases constituting a structured representation of the context of use of the system, and that it establishes, using this structured representation, the dialogue between the users and the services of the application.
• the device for implementing the method of the invention applied to a system of the type comprising at least one man-machine interface, at least one application server and a database is characterized in that there is interposed between the interface and the scent of applications a device in which are included intelligent calculation systems establishing the two-way interaction between the user (or users) and the system.
• FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram showing, on the one hand, a conventional "three-thirds" architecture, and on the other side an architecture according to the invention
• FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of a system according to the invention and explaining the flow of information from the user to the servers;
• FIG. 3 is a detailed block diagram of a system according to the invention and explaining the flow of information from the servers to the user.
• various household devices such as television set, video recorder, satellite receiver, personal computer, personal assistant ("PDA"), etc ...
• PDA personal assistant
• This user must, when ordering from one of these devices to that of another device, make an effort to adapt to each of the various control interfaces of these devices, which are generally very diverse (remote control boxes, keyboard, buttons, ). It would therefore be desirable for this user to only have to memorize and get used to the command of a single interface, for example a PDA.
• PDA personal assistant
• the invention first consists in relieving the designers and developers of applications of the question of the use of these applications in each particular context, thus enabling them to offer generic application services, easy to maintain, extend and reuse.
• the invention consists in relieving interface designers and developers of the problem of the interaction between interfaces and applications, and thus enables them to propose extensible and reusable interfaces.
• apparatus or equipment comprising at least one computer layer supporting at least one model representation of a terminal, at least one application representation, even in a rudimentary form and at least one computer user interface itself supporting software.
• the process of interaction between users and systems is based on the following fundamental characteristic, which consists in making the interaction universal by separating it from the application proper on the one hand and from the interaction media with the application on the other go. More specifically, it involves “encapsulating” the human and the context of use of the system in a new component responsible for managing human-system interaction. This component is by definition independent of the services offered by the application while allowing access to these services regardless of the interaction medium and whatever the physical context in which this medium is used.
• the method of the invention results in the construction of a container of interaction objects, called human-system interaction container for short "Cl PS".
• human-system interaction container for short "Cl PS”.
• this container consists of an intermediate interaction middleware component which implements the management of user-system interaction in the form of interaction services. generic enough to allow dialogue between application services and interface services regardless of these services.
• the CIPS separates the application from the client station. This separation implies the reduction of the application to a set of services, which can thus be considered as application services.
• the interface (HMI" or Human-Machine Interface) no longer directly calls the functions of the application, but goes through the CIPS, which interprets any action of the interface and generates its own calls to the relevant application services.
• the operation of the interaction container is based on descriptions, in the form of knowledge bases, of the human (“Who is he?”), Of his activity (“What does he do?”), Of the context in which this activity takes place (“Where is it?”) and services rendered by the other components of the system (“How does it do it?”), as well as on a history of the user-system dialogue which describes the past interaction between the user and the system and its evolution over time.
• the container offers a set of intelligent treatments which implement user-system interaction via the various interaction media.
• a major characteristic of the present invention lies in the identification of a user-system interaction component. independent of the application services on the one hand and of the interaction media on the other hand, this component being until today distributed between the application and the interfaces and buried in the services offered by each of these components , while it is integrated into the CIPS of the invention.
• the method of the invention makes the interaction layer independent and has the immediate advantage of " allowing designers and developers of applications and interfaces to focus on their primary task, which is to provide their respective services without worrying Besides the introduction into systems of a clearly identified and localized interaction component, another important characteristic of the invention described here resides in the possibilities offered by this interaction component, in particular the use of mechanisms. user-system dialogs which take full account of the operational context of the system and the user.
• CIPS and called business interaction tier business interaction tier in English because it is responsible for managing user-system interaction for a particular class of users, that is to say a particular profession.
• the application services implement the functionalities which are strictly the responsibility of the application, that is to say all the processes specific to the application domain: algorithms, calculations, data management, etc. From the point of view of the present invention, they must be completely independent of any particular context of use,
• Interface services implement the perception and action functionalities for a particular class of terminals or even a particular terminal, that is to say all the peripheral management processes: graphic display, sound reproduction, keyboard, mouse, microphone, touch screen, etc. From the point of view of the invention described here, they must be independent of the users and, as far as possible, of the underlying application. It turns out that this last point is not always verifiable in existing equipment, in particular with regard to the presentation of application data which is strongly constrained by the format of this data, and that customers do not wish to modify .
• Interaction services are all services that will allow users to access application services via a given terminal - a set of interface services.
• the CIPS has means of representing the context of interaction between the user and the system. These representation means allow him to build and manipulate a set of knowledge bases (on the user, the domain, the task, etc.) in order to provide the means of interaction with the data on the context necessary for their operation.
• the interaction means allow the CIPS to render the interaction services defined above and are based for this on internal communication means, specific to the CIPS, and external, which ensure communication with the other layers (server of the 'application and clients) of the four-tier architecture. These internal and external means of communication create the infrastructure necessary for the functioning of the CIPS. The different means identified here are described more precisely below.
• the function of representation is to build, adapt and manipulate the knowledge bases necessary for the implementation of interaction services. These constitute a structured representation of the context of use of the system.
• the different knowledge bases identified by the present invention relate to the following knowledge (see FIGS. 2 and 3):
• Domain 5 this is a conceptual representation of the field of application of the system, for example in the form of an entity-relationship diagram. It allows the CIPS to manage the interaction services according to the organizational context of the system;
• Application 6 (included in services 16.1 to 16.N described below): this involves representing all the services of the application offered by the server layer of the application. This allows the CIPS to select the interaction services adapted to the functional context of the system;
• User (s) 7 this is information on the different classes of users of the system and on the different users within these classes, such as the profiles or preferences of these users. . They allow the CIPS to configure the interaction services according to the operational context from the operators' point of view;
• Task 8 this involves formalizing the task that the system user must perform, including performance and security constraints, or the collaborative task that users must perform in the case of teamwork. This allows the CIPS to offer the appropriate interaction services according to the operational context from an operations point of view;
• Modalities 9 this involves describing the different modes of perception and action offered by the terminals connected to the system, such as two or three-dimensional displays, voice, gesture, etc. This allows the CIPS to implement the interaction services according to the logical context of use;
• Terminals 10 this involves modeling the different classes of terminals, and the different terminals within these classes, which users have to interact with the system, in particular in terms of input / output devices or possibilities of expression. This allows the CIPS to adapt the interaction services to the physical context of use.
• the means of representation, used during the creation and updating of the CIPS, for the management of these different knowledge bases are divided into four categories, which are: 1. Acquisition means: they allow experts - specialists, designers or developers - in the field, application, terminals, etc. to specify all or part of the corresponding knowledge bases, possibly in the form of business rules;
• Means of derivation they allow the CIPS to produce particular representations from generic knowledge bases and contextual information obtained by means of acquisition, or to produce generic knowledge bases based on particular representations ;
• Automatic revision means they allow the CIPS to review knowledge bases automatically by examining real situations and interaction sessions; 5. Means of use: they allow the CIPS to use knowledge bases for the implementation of interaction means.
• a subset 18 for analyzing the events represented by the actions of users on the interfaces 11 to 13
• a subset 19 for taking into account the actions of the users (as transmitted by the subset 18) and for interaction management
• a subset 20 for communication with the services 16.1 to 16.N.
• the sub-assembly 18 comprises the following functions: an analyzer 21 of the information supplied by the PC browser and an analyzer 22 of the information transmitted by the other interfaces of the PC, an analyzer 23 of the information transmitted by the interface 12 of the PDA and a analyzer 24 of the information transmitted by the speech recognition device 13.
• the analyzer 24 is associated, in a conventional manner, with a grammar 25 and a lexicon 26.
• the subset 18 would include the corresponding analyzers.
• a given system can be associated with a different number of HMI interfaces, or with a single type of HMI.
• the analyzers of the subset 18 produce, from the events created by the different interfaces 11 to 13, event logic information managed by the subset 19.
• a multimodal manager 27, cooperating with the database modalities 9, converts the event logic information into logic signals which it transmits to a reference resolver 28 of multimodal type (direct designation, linguistic, gestural, etc.).
• This resolver 28 calls on the domain database 5 and on the history 29 of past actions, and it sends information to a function interpreter 30 in propositional form.
• the interpreter 30, with reference to the domain database 5, makes corresponding proposals in functional form to an interaction manager 31 which, by referring to the databases 7, 8 and 29, prepares calls for functions or services of the application which it sends to the various communication devices 20.
• This information passes through the same communication devices 20 and the corresponding data is sent to the manager 31.
• the latter cooperates with a service planner 32, with the databases 5, 7, 8 and with filters 33.
• These filters 33 include task filters 34 (for example SQL) and filters 35 relating to the user (text filters, audio filters, etc.).
• the manager 31 communicates information in logical form to a mode selector 36, responsible for putting in appropriate form (text, sounds, images) the information to be presented to the users.
• the selector 36 cooperates with the databases 9 and 10 and adapters 37 for conversion, selection, formatting, in order to provide this information in adequate propositional form to the interfaces of the users.
• This selector 36 routes the information to the various corresponding converters of a set 38 of converters.
• This set 38 includes: a converter 39 for the PC browser, a converter 40 for the visual interfaces 11 of the PC (screens), a converter 41 for the screen of the interface 12 of the PDA and a voice converter 42 (generator of natural language).
• the converter 42 cooperates, like the analyzer 24, with the grammar 25 and the lexicon 26, and supplies a text in natural language to a specialized device 43 for speech synthesis and / or to the interface 11 of the PC.
• the device 43 cooperates with an acoustic model 44.
• the interaction means have for function the effective realization of the CIPS interaction services.
• These interaction services implement a set of intelligent treatments which fall into four main classes, namely:
• Interface adaptation services are all the processes that will allow the use of different terminals and modalities for interaction with the system. They include: • Reducing the flow of information to adapt information to the possibilities of expression of the terminals according to the descriptions of these terminals; • Dissemination of information to transmit information to different terminals, possibly wireless and or mobile;
• the means of communication have the function of providing the infrastructure necessary for the implementation of the means of representation and interaction. They allow the CIPS to offer the same interaction services regardless of the applications and contexts of use.
• the means of communication are responsible for managing the following problems:
• Adaptation to wired or wireless networks Adaptation to different operating systems; The implementation of communication protocols with the application server on the one hand and client interfaces on the other (terminals, peripherals, etc.).

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Software Systems (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
• Stored Programmes (AREA)

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• 2002
  • 2002-09-27 FR FR0212012A patent/FR2845174B1/fr not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 2003
  • 2003-09-29 US US10/529,045 patent/US8020174B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2003-09-29 AU AU2003283479A patent/AU2003283479A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2003-09-29 WO PCT/FR2003/002853 patent/WO2004029799A1/fr not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2003-09-29 EP EP03775451A patent/EP1543413A1/de not_active Withdrawn

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