JP2003256725A - Device and method for providing information supporting utilization of product - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the usability by providing a menu screen to allow a user to easily reach the necessary information in an electronic manual. <P>SOLUTION: A main menu screen 100 is provided with a first sub-image plane 110 having various display items by every user, a second sub-screen 120 having display items common to all of the users, and a third sub-screen 130 having predetermined display items. The first sub-screen 110 displays the items of contents which have been browsed by a user using the electronic manual in the past in order of higher frequency. The second sub-screen 120 acquires the information disclosed as FAQ from a server, and displays the items of the manual contents relating to the FAQ information. The third sub-screen 130 displays a predetermined menu screen fixed in the electronic manual. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for providing utilization support information such as an electronic manual of a product, and more particularly to items included in a menu screen of the utilization support information providing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Electronic manuals for browsing application software for electronic devices and computers on a computer have been put into practical use.

When the electronic manual provides the manual content to the user, it is displayed on a CRT which is a display device of a computer, a liquid crystal display or the like. Therefore, in a normal case, the size of the display screen is limited, and thus the amount of information that can be displayed at one time is limited. Therefore, the content of the electronic manual has a complicated hierarchical structure, and the menu screen showing this hierarchical structure is presented to the user. The user can display the required content by following this hierarchical structure.

Increasing the manual content is preferable for the user because more information can be obtained from the electronic manual. On the other hand, however, if the manual content increases, the menu hierarchy becomes deeper and more complicated accordingly, and the usability becomes worse.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to improve the usability of a utilization support information providing device such as an electronic manual.

[0006] Another object of the present invention is to provide a menu screen that allows a user to easily reach necessary information.

[0007]

According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a utilization support information providing device for outputting a menu screen for providing product utilization support information, in which information unique to the utilization support information providing device is output. An individual menu screen determined based on the information and a common menu screen determined based on information common to a plurality of users regarding the product are output.

A providing apparatus for providing product utilization support information according to another embodiment of the present invention stores the information indicating the access record of each item of the utilization support information, and the storage unit. And a determining unit that determines the content to be displayed on the menu screen based on the information.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, a providing device for providing product utilization support information includes a FAQ of the product.
(Frequently Asked Questions) Receiving section that receives FAQ information, and the F section that the receiving section has received
And a determination unit that determines the content to be displayed on the menu screen based on the AQ information.

[0010]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of an electronic manual system to which the present invention is applied will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of an electronic manual system according to this embodiment. In this system, a host device 10 and a server 2 are connected via a network 9 such as the Internet. The single host device 10 shown in FIG. 1 may be replaced by, for example, a plurality of host devices 10 and one host device 10 may be assigned to each user of the electronic manual. In the host device 10,
A display device 4 such as a CRT or a liquid crystal display and an input device 5 such as a keyboard or a pointing device are connected.

The electronic manual in this embodiment may be an electronic manual for any product, for example, a computer, a peripheral device such as a printer or a scanner, or an electronic manual for other electronic devices, or on a computer. It may be an electronic manual for application software that runs on.

The host device 10 and the server 2 are both configured by, for example, a general-purpose computer system, and individual components or functions in the host device 10 and the server 2 described below execute, for example, a computer program. It is realized by

The server 2 provides various kinds of information regarding products targeted by the electronic manual. For example, a server that provides printer-related information provides a printer driver program and Q & A regarding printer usage and troubles. On the server 2, for example, a WWW server is operating, and the above information can be provided on a Web page.

In this embodiment, the server 2 has a network interface section 21 and an FAQ storage section 22. The network interface unit 21 includes a network 9 such as the host device 10 via the network 9.
Communicate with the device connected to. The FAQ storage unit 22 is
Frequently Asked Questions from Users, FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions), the question and the answer to it are memorized, and this information is open to the public. For example, FIG. 2 shows an example of data items stored in the FAQ storage unit 22. That is, FA
The Q storage unit 22 stores the FAQ-ID 221 as a data item.
, A FAQ title 222, a question detail 223, and an answer 224 to the question. FAQ-ID221
Is an ID for identifying each Q & A. The FAQ title 222 is a title showing the contents of the Q & A. When the user accesses the FAQ, the FAQ title 222 list is first presented to the user, and the user can judge whether to see the detailed Q & A by this title. The question details 223 is a sentence showing the specific content of the question. Answer 224 is a sentence showing an answer to this question.

Since the contents stored in the FAQ storage unit 22 are created based on questions, questions, troubles, etc. received from many users, they are of common concern to a plurality of users. This is useful information for all users.

When the network interface 21 receives a FAQ data acquisition request, which will be described later, from the host device 10, the data stored in the FAQ storage unit 22 is returned to the host device 1 item by item. Here, the data item to be returned is one or more data items of the FAQ title 222, the question details 223, and the answer 224.

The host device 10 has a network interface unit 11, a display content determination unit 12, an input / output device control unit 13, a counter 14 for storing the number of times of display, which is an access record of each manual content, and a manual content storage. A unit 15 and a keyword data storage unit 16 are provided. On the host device 10, for example, W
An eb browser is operating, and it is possible to browse information of the server 2 and manual content data by using this function.

The network interface unit 11 communicates with devices such as the server 2 connected to the network 9 via the network 9.

The input / output device controller 13 controls the display device 4 and the input device 5 to output various information and receive various inputs from the user.

The counter 14 stores the number of times the content is displayed on the display device 4 for each manual content. For example,
In the counter 14, as shown in FIG.
141 and the display count 142 of the content are stored. For example, each time the content body 157 is displayed, the display content determination unit 12 increments the display count 142 of the corresponding content ID 141 by one.

The manual content storage unit 15 stores electronic manual content data. For example,
Utilization support information including a handling method, an operating method, and a maintenance method of a target product is stored as content.

An example of data items stored in the content storage 15 is shown in FIG. Here, the content storage unit 1
5 includes a content category 151 and a content 1
54 and 54 are stored. Category 151 is
A category ID 152 and a category name 153 for uniquely identifying the category are included as data items. The content 154 includes a content ID 154 for uniquely identifying the content, a manual title name 155, and a manual body 156 as data items. And one or more contents 15 in one category 151
4 is associated.

The keyword data storage unit 16 stores one or a plurality of keywords for searching the content storage unit 15.

The display content determination unit 12 determines the content to be displayed on the screen of the manual data storage unit 15. The display content determination unit 12 further stores the content to be displayed on the screen in the manual content storage unit 15.
From the display device 4 via the input / output device controller 13
To display. At this time, the contents to be displayed are the manual title name 156 and the manual body 157.
Either one or both. Further, the category name 153 may be included in the displayed content.

When the manual text 157 is displayed, the display content determination unit 12 uses the content ID 155 as a key and sets the display count 1 stored in the counter 14 to 1.
42 is updated.

In the present embodiment, the content displayed on the main menu screen that is first displayed when the user starts the electronic manual is dynamically changed according to the situation at that time. An example of the main menu screen 100 is shown in FIG.

The main menu screen 100 is divided into three sub screens 110, 120 and 130. The first sub-screen 110 is a menu screen for each user, a second sub-screen 110
The sub screen 120 is a menu screen common to a plurality of users,
The third sub screen 130 is a fixed menu screen. Items to be displayed on the first and second sub-screens 110 and 120 and the display order of the items are determined by the display content determination unit 12 by a process described below. Items to be displayed on the fixed menu screen to be displayed on the third sub screen and the order in which they are displayed are predetermined, and the information is held by the display content determination unit 12. It should be noted that the processing for determining the display content described below is performed in the first sub-screen and the second sub-screen.
Either of the sub-screens may be performed first, or those processes may be performed in parallel.

(1) First Sub-Screen The display content of the first sub-screen is for each user, that is,
It is individually determined for each host device 10. Hereinafter, a specific procedure for determining the display content of the first sub screen will be described.

When the main menu screen 100 is displayed, the display content determining section 12 refers to the counter 14 and sorts the content IDs 141 in descending order of the number of times of display 142. Then, the display content determination unit 12 generates information for displaying the manual title names 156 on the first sub-screen 110 in the sorted order. Manual title name 156 is content ID 1
It is acquired from the manual content storage unit 15 with 41 as a key.

As a result, the display content of the first sub-screen depends on the storage content of the counter 14 unique to each host device 10, and the display content of the first sub-screen differs for each host device 10. Further, the stored content of the counter 14 is updated every time the user browses the content in the electronic manual, so that the display content of the first sub-screen changes depending on the timing of activating the electronic manual.

As described above, the display content determining section 12 determines the content to be displayed on the first sub screen. Then, the first sub-screen 110 is displayed on the display device 4 based on the information for displaying the first sub-screen thus generated.

(2) Second Sub-Screen The display content of the second sub-screen is common to a plurality of users who use the product targeted by the electronic manual, that is,
The same menu screen is displayed on all host devices 10 that can access the server 2. Hereinafter, a specific procedure for determining the display content of the second sub screen will be described.

The display content determining section 12 transmits a FAQ data acquisition request to the server 2 via the network interface 11 to acquire the FAQ data. here,
The FAQ data received by the display content determination unit 12 is
It includes one or more items of the FAQ title 222, question details 223, and answers 224.

The display content determination unit 12 acquires the F
The AQ data is searched to determine whether the FAQ data includes the keyword stored in the keyword data storage unit 16. Display content determination unit 12
Makes this determination for each of a plurality of keywords stored in the keyword data storage unit 16, and stores the hit keyword in a predetermined area.

When any of the keywords is included in the FAQ data, that is, when the hit keyword is stored in a predetermined area, the display content determining section 12 extracts the content corresponding to the hit keyword. . When there are a plurality of hit keywords, the display content determination unit 12 extracts the content corresponding to each keyword.

For example, the display content determination section 12 searches whether the hit keyword is included in the manual text 157. When the hit keyword is included in the manual body 157, the display content determination unit 12 acquires the manual title name 156 corresponding to the manual body 157.

Alternatively, the manual content storage unit 1
5, when a keyword is registered in advance in association with each content ID 155, the hit keyword is compared with the registered keyword, and when they match, the corresponding manual title name 156 is acquired. .

Then, the display content determining section 12 generates information for displaying the manual title name 156 acquired here on the second sub-screen 120. The second sub-screen 120 is, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, an FAQ title name 121 and a manual title name 12 associated with the FAQ title name by a keyword.
2 may be displayed together.

As a result, the display content of the second sub-screen depends on the storage content of the FAQ storage unit 22 common to a plurality of users, and is a common screen for all users who use the same server 2. . Furthermore, when the storage content of the FAQ storage unit 22 is updated, the display content of the second sub screen changes accordingly.

As described above, the display content determining section 12 determines the content to be displayed on the second sub screen. Then, the second sub-screen 120 is displayed on the display device 4 based on the information for displaying the second sub-screen thus generated.

When the information for displaying the first sub-screen and the second sub-screen is generated by executing the above-described processing, the display content determining section 12 has these information in advance. The main menu screen 100 is displayed on the display device 4 by combining the information for displaying the third sub screen.

Further, any one of the first sub-screen of the user individual menu, the second sub-screen of the common menu for a plurality of users, and the third sub-screen of the predetermined fixed menu or any two sub-screens. You may comprise the main menu screen 100 with a screen.

The above-described embodiments of the present invention are examples for explaining the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention only to those embodiments. Those skilled in the art can implement the present invention in various other modes without departing from the gist of the present invention.

For example, the above-described host device and server can be realized together by one computer machine, or can be realized separately for each computer machine.

[0046]

According to the present invention, the usability of the utilization support information providing device such as an electronic manual is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an electronic manual system according to an embodiment to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of an FAQ storage unit 22.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of a counter 14.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of a manual contents storage unit 15.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a main menu screen.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 ... server 4 ... Display device 5 ... Input device 9 ... Network 10 ... Host device 11 ... Network interface section 12 ... Display content determination unit 13 ... I / O device controller 14 ... Counter 15 ... Manual content storage unit 16 ... Keyword data storage unit 21 ... Network interface section 22 ... FAQ storage section

Claims (13)

[Claims] 1. A utilization support information providing device for outputting a menu screen for providing product utilization support information, wherein: an individual menu screen determined based on information unique to the utilization support information providing device; A utilization support information providing device that outputs a common menu screen determined based on information common to a plurality of users regarding the product. 2. The individual menu screen and the common menu screen each display one or more items, and each item displayed on the both menu screens can accept a selection by a user. The utilization support information providing device described in 1. 3. A storage unit that stores information unique to the utilization support information providing apparatus, a first determination unit that refers to the storage unit and determines an item to be displayed on the individual menu screen, and the product. The utilization support according to claim 1, further comprising: an acquisition unit that acquires information common to the plurality of users, and a second determination unit that determines an item to be displayed on the common menu screen based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit. Information providing device. 4. The utilization support information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the individual menu screen and the common menu screen are screens displayed when the utilization support information providing apparatus is activated. 5. A program for operating a computer as a utilization support information providing device that outputs a menu screen for providing product utilization support information, wherein the utilization support information providing device is the utilization support information. A computer program that outputs an individual menu screen determined based on information unique to a providing device and a common menu screen determined based on information common to a plurality of users regarding the product. 6. A providing apparatus for providing product utilization support information, comprising: a storage unit that stores information indicating an access record for each item of the utilization support information; and a storage unit that stores the information based on the information stored in the storage unit. A utilization support information providing device, comprising: a determination unit that determines the content to be displayed on the menu screen. 7. The utilization support information providing apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising a counting unit that counts the number of access times of each item of utilization support information, and stores the number of accesses counted by the counting unit in the storage unit. 8. A process of counting the number of times each item of utilization support information is accessed when executed by a computer, and based on the number of times each item of utilization support information is accessed,
A computer program for providing utilization support information for performing processing for determining the content displayed on the menu screen. 9. A providing apparatus for providing product utilization support information, comprising: a reception unit that receives FAQ information related to FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) of the product; and a reception unit that receives the FAQ information. And a determination unit that determines the content to be displayed on the menu screen. 10. A process for receiving FAQ information related to a product FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) when executed by a computer, and a menu screen for providing utilization support information based on the received FAQ information. A computer program for providing product utilization support information that performs processing for determining the content to be displayed on. 11. A computer-readable recording medium, which, when executed by a computer, accepts FAQ information relating to a product's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), and based on the accepted FAQ information, A recording medium that records a computer program for providing processing for determining the contents to be displayed on the menu screen for providing utilization support information and for providing utilization support information for a product that performs the processing. 12. An area for recording the utilization support information of the product and an item of the utilization support information in association with each other is recorded, and the determining process includes the utilization support information item related to the FAQ information. The recording medium according to claim 11, wherein the recording medium is extracted from a region, and the extracted item is determined to be displayed on the menu screen. 13. The determining process identifies the utilization support information associated with the FAQ information using a predetermined keyword, and the utilization support information item associated with the identified utilization support information. 13. The recording medium according to claim 12, wherein is extracted from the area.