JPH11272584A - Method for displaying accepted inquiry mail and recording medium in which program of the same is recorded - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently feed an inquiry of a person to browse a home page back to improvement of the home page in the Internet utilizing an electronic mail. SOLUTION: A method for display an accepted inquiry mail is provided with a step to collect inquiry data consisting of condition data to indicate a condition under which the inquiry occurs together with the inquiry of the person to browse the home page and user data to indicate an attribute of the person to browse the home page, a step to store dialog data consisting of the inquiry data from the person to browse the home page and response data from a home page manager, a step to display the stored dialog data and a step to change a display mode.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a Web server storing a homepage and a client having browsing software for browsing the homepage are connected to the Internet, and can receive a question to a viewer of the homepage. In an Internet system, the present invention relates to a method of displaying a question acceptance mail on a homepage and a recording medium storing the program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional method of accepting a question on a homepage, an e-mail address of a homepage administrator is made public, and simple inquiries and purchase procedures of goods are performed through this e-mail address. Since the homepage administrator can be accessed by e-mail, the viewer and the homepage administrator can communicate when it is convenient without regard to the time zone.

[0003] In order to realize this question acceptance, there are two types of Internet systems: a system using e-mail and a system using CGI (Common Gateway Interface). The difference between the two is that
In transmitting a mail from a viewer to an administrator, it is not necessary to pass through a Web server. In the case of CGI, it is necessary to pass through.

[0004] If the Web server is a so-called rental server (a server borrowed by an administrator from a third party organization), in a system based on CGI, questions of a viewer always pass through the rental server. . Since such a rental server is managed by a third party organization,
There is a possibility that the user's question may be seen by this third party organization. In an e-mail system, there is little risk of such privacy infringement.

[0005]

In the present invention, it is assumed that a Web server that stores homepages is a rental server, and that an e-mail system is used that has a low risk of privacy infringement. And

[0006] By the way, the conventional method of displaying a mail for accepting a question on a homepage in this type of system does not have a sufficient mechanism for feeding back a question of a viewer to the improvement of the homepage. First, it is not clear under what circumstances the question occurred. For example, you do not know on which page the question occurred. For this reason, in order to pursue the cause of the question, the homepage administrator needs to find the page to be asked. If the number of pages on the created homepage is large,
It costs money to find the page to ask questions. Second
However, since there is no information indicating the attribute of the viewer who asked the question, it is impossible to stratify and deal with various types of users. If it is not possible to classify the audience, it is difficult to create a homepage that meets the needs of each audience.

In order to create a Q & A collection, the administrator browses past files using electronic mail software and creates files in a new structured technology language. In addition, only one Q & A collection is created for each homepage. However, when the volume of the received questions increases in creating the Q & A collection, the creation cost is extremely high if the administrator manually performs this creation work. Further, since the Q & A collection is a single file, it is difficult for a viewer to search for a specific Q & A from the large number of Q & A collections.

[0008] Therefore, a problem to be solved by the present invention is to enable a question of a viewer to be efficiently fed back to the improvement of a homepage even when the number of questions is increased.

[0009]

According to the present invention, question data composed of situation data indicating the situation in which the question occurred and user data indicating the attribute of the viewer are collected together with the question of the viewer. A question database (DB) composed of question data from a viewer and answer data from a homepage administrator is automatically stored.

[0010] With this, it is possible to understand under what circumstances the question of the viewer is generated and by which viewer. For example, if the page where the question occurred is collected as the situation data, it is possible to know on which page the question occurred, so that the page to be improved for the question is known. Also,
If you take the date and time that the question occurred as status data,
Since the date and time when the question occurred can be known, it is possible to know when the question is directed to the information. Therefore, when the information is updated in time series, it is possible to know when the information should be improved. On the other hand, if you take a questionnaire on products handled by the homepage as user data,
It is possible to grasp the tendency of the viewer's preference. Thus, a guideline for an advertisement to be presented can be obtained.

[0011] Further, by automatically accumulating interactive data composed of question data from a viewer and answer data from a manager, it is possible to centrally manage situation data, user data, questions, and answers. it can.

Further, according to the present invention, the display mode of the stored interactive data can be changed. Thus, the interactive data can be searched and displayed in a format that is easy to browse. For example, if you want a general overview,
Displays a dialogue list that summarizes data for each page throughout all pages. This gives you the number of questions on a particular page,
You can see the total number of questions, the questionnaire results for a specific page, the overall questionnaire results, and so on. If you want to know the details of a question and an answer, a specific question and an answer on a specific page are displayed. This facilitates feedback on a specific page. Further, when the user wants to know the time-series data fluctuation, a statistical list of data for each day or every month is displayed. Thus, a homepage that periodically updates information can know when the question is about the updated information.

Further, according to the present invention, even if the number of received questions increases, the page field is given first priority to the interactive DB in order to reduce the creation cost of the Q & A manager and the search cost of the viewer. Automatically sorts the date fields by second priority, generates a page-by-page question collection from the sorted dialogue DB, and generates a question-by-question Q & A from the sorted dialogue DB. To be able to create a Q & A homepage for each.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. This system is
Client 10 that can browse homepage
0 and a Web server that stores homepages. The client 100 has a homepage communication unit 10
1, interactive display control unit 102, input format communication unit 1
03, interstitial data transmitter 104, question data generator 10
5, a page monitor 106, a date monitor 107, a response data receiver 108, and the like. The Web server 200 includes a homepage storage unit 201, a homepage communication unit 202, an input format communication unit 203, a question data reception unit 204, a conversation database (hereinafter abbreviated as DB) storage unit 205, an answer data creation unit 206, and answer data. It comprises a transmission unit 207, a display mode change unit 208, an interactive display control unit 209, and the like.

In FIG. 1, the home page communication unit 101, the input format communication unit 103, the question data transmission unit 104, and the answer data reception unit 108 of the client 100
Although it is shown that the homepage communication unit 202, the input format communication unit 203, the question data reception unit 204, and the recovery data transmission unit 208 of the eb server 200 are directly connected to each other, this is a logical connection. Yes, it goes without saying that they are physically connected via the Internet 300.

The homepage communication unit 101 of the client 100 is connected to the homepage communication unit 20 of the web server 200.
2 requests a specific page and receives the transmitted page. The interactive display control unit 102 is the homepage communication unit 1
The home page received by 01 is displayed on the screen. Also,
It also controls the display of the input format from the input format communication unit 103 and the response data from the response data receiving unit 108. When the viewer clicks the question request icon on the displayed homepage, the input format communication unit 103 requests the input format communication unit 203 of the Web server 200 for a format for transmitting the question, and requests the format. Is transmitted, the format is received and displayed on the screen via the interactive display control unit 102. FIG. 2 shows this state. Also, the input format communication unit 103 transfers the input format to the question data creation unit 105.

Question data transmitting section 1 of client 100
When requesting the transmission of the question data created by the viewer, the requester 04 requests the question data creation unit 105 to transfer the question data. When the question data is transferred, the question data reception unit 204 of the Web server 200 To the question data. FIG. 3 shows a data structure of the question data. The question data includes a transmission destination, a page, a date and time, user data, a question content, and the like.

The question data creation unit 105 waits for input of a question and user data in the input format obtained from the input format communication unit 103, and stores the input question and user data in the question content and user data fields of the question data. Insert each. When a request to transfer question data is sent from the question data transmission unit 104, the page monitoring unit 10
6 requests the current date and time to the date and time monitoring unit 107, and inserts them into the page and date and time columns of the question data, respectively. After that, the question data is transferred to the question data transmitting unit 104. In the case of the example of FIG. 2, question data as shown in FIG. 3 is created.

When a request for transmission of the current page is issued from the question data creation unit 105, the page monitoring unit 106 causes the home page display unit 102 to transfer the URL of the current page, and returns it to the question data creation unit 105. When a request for transmitting the current date and time is issued from the question data creating unit 104, the date and time monitoring unit 107 returns the current date and time.

Response data receiving section 1 of client 100
08, in response to the transmission of the question data to the Web server by the question data transmission unit 104, the response data is received from the response data transmission unit 208 of the Web server 200, and displayed on the screen via the interactive display control unit 102. FIG. 4 shows a display example of an answer to the question content of FIG.

Homepage storage section 2 of Web server 200
Reference numeral 01 stores a home page. When a specific page transmission request is issued from the home page communication unit 202, the page is returned. Upon receiving a page transmission request from the homepage communication unit 101 of the client 100, the homepage communication unit 202 issues the page transmission request to the homepage storage unit 201, and stores the page returned from the homepage storage unit 201 in the homepage of the client 100. The data is transmitted to the communication unit 101. Input format communication unit 20
3 is an input format communication unit 1 of the client 100
When the transmission request is received from 03, the input format is returned. The question data receiving unit 204 receives the question data (FIG. 3) from the question data transmitting unit 104 of the client 100 and transfers the data to the interactive DB storage unit 205.

Upon receiving the question data from the question data receiving unit 204, the dialog DB storage unit 205 secures an area to increase the number of columns in the dialog DB by one. The data structure of one column of the conversation DB includes at least an ID such as a serial number, a page, a date and time, user data, a question, and an answer.
The page of question data, date and time, user data, and question are inserted into the reserved columns. In addition, the answer data creation unit 20
When the question is referred to from step 6 and the answer data is received, the answer data is inserted into the answer column of the referred dialogue DB column.
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the data structure of the conversation DB.

When the homepage administrator requests a response to a question, the answer data creating unit 206 instructs the interactive DB storage unit 205 to refer to the question to be answered. Then, when an answer to the referred question is input, the answer data is transferred to the interactive DB storage unit 205 and sent to the answer data transmitting unit 207. The answer data transmitting unit 207 transmits the answer data (FIG. 4) created by the answer data creating unit 206 to the answer data receiving unit 108 of the client 100.

The display mode change unit 208 switches to a list display mode, a detailed display mode, a time-series time mode, or the like in response to a request from a user who views the dialog DB of the dialog DB storage unit 205, and displays the selected mode interactively. Control unit 209
Transfer to

When the request for displaying the dialogue list is transferred from the display mode conversion unit 208, the dialogue display control unit 209 calculates the number of questions and the number of user data for each page in the dialogue DB storage unit 205, and Display the list on the screen. FIG. 6 shows a dialogue list display. Further, when the request for the dialog detail display is transferred from the display mode conversion unit 208, the question and answer data of the page specified by the user in the dialog DB storage unit 205 is displayed on the screen. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the dialog detail display. Further, when the request for the dialog time series display is transferred from the display mode conversion unit 208, the number of questions and the number of user data for each fixed period (eg, every day) of the dialog DB storage unit 205 are calculated and sorted. Display things on the screen. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of the dialog time-series display.

Next, the overall operation of the first embodiment of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

Step S1: In the client 100,
When the viewer is browsing the homepage displayed on the screen through the interactive display control unit 102 and clicks a question request icon on the homepage, the input format communication unit 203 receives an input from the input format communication unit 203 of the Web server 200. The format is acquired, and a screen is displayed via the interactive display control unit 102 to prompt the viewer to enter a question and user data. The input format is also transferred to the question data creation unit 105. Thereafter, the process proceeds to steps S2 and S3. Hereinafter, as shown in FIG. 2, a description will be given of a homepage of a publisher regarding outdoor products as an example.

Step S2: Input of a question of a viewer is accepted according to the input format. The input question is inserted into the question column of the question data by the question data creating unit 105.

Step S3: Input of user data of the viewer is accepted according to the input format. In the example of FIG. 2, the questionnaire of what the viewer wants to buy corresponds to the user data. The input user data is similarly inserted into the user data column of the question data by the question data creating unit 105. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S4.

Step S4: When the viewer inputs the question and the user data and clicks the send button, the question data transmitter 104 requests the question data generator 105 to transfer the question data. Question data creation unit 105
Requests the current page and date and time from the page monitoring unit 106 and the date and time monitoring unit 107, inserts them into the question data to complete the question data, and transfers the question data to the question data transmission unit 104. The question data transmitting unit 104 transmits the question data to the quality data receiving unit 204 of the Web server 200. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S5.

Step S5: In the Web server 200, when the question data receiving unit 204 receives the question data, a row of areas is secured in the conversation DB storage unit 205. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S6.

Step S6: Question data receiving section 204
Inserts a page, date and time, user data, and a question into the reserved column of the dialog DB storage unit 205. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S11, and waits for the subsequent processing.

Step S7: When the publisher of the homepage administrator issues a request to write a response to the question of the viewer, the response data creating unit 206 stores the column of the question designated by the publisher in the interactive DB storage unit 205. refer. Then, step S
Proceed to 8.

Step S8: Answer data creation unit 206
Refers to the question, displays the question inserted in the question column of the referenced column via the interactive display control unit 209, and waits for input of an answer to the question. Thereafter, the process proceeds to steps S9 and S10. For example, an answer as shown in FIG. 4 is input to the example of FIG.

Step S9: The answer data creating unit 206 instructs the interactive DB storage unit 205 to insert the input answer into the answer column of the column of the referenced interactive DB,
The conversation DB storage unit 205 inserts the answer in the answer column of the corresponding column. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S11.

Step S10: Response data creation unit 206
Transfers the answer contents together with the e-mail address of the viewer to the answer data transmitting unit 207. Response data transmission unit 207
Transmits an answer to the e-mail address of the viewer, and the answer data receiving unit 108 of the client 100 receives the answer.

Step S11: In the Web server 200,
Question data receiving unit 204 or answer data creating unit 20
When predetermined data is inserted into the corresponding column of the dialogue DB from step 6, the dialogue display control unit 209 is instructed to display the contents of the dialogue DB on the screen. The default display mode is a dialogue list display mode.

Step S12: Display mode change unit 208
When the display mode is changed, the interactive display control unit 209 is instructed to redraw the interactive DB in the designated display mode.

Embodiment 2 FIG. 10 shows Embodiment 2 of the present invention.
3 is a block diagram showing a main part of FIG. This is because, in the system configuration of FIG.
0, a work interaction DB storage unit 211, a data extraction / transfer unit 212, a data monitoring unit 213, a file management unit 214,
An HTML template storage unit 215 is newly provided. Other components are the same as those in the first embodiment shown in FIG.

The sort unit 210 is provided with a dialog DB storage unit 205.
Of the dialog DB with the page field as the first priority and the date field as the second priority,
The data is transferred to the storage unit 211. Work dialogue DB storage unit 211
Stores the data transferred from the sorting unit 210, and when there is a data extraction request from the data extraction / transfer unit 212, stores the specific data in the work interaction DB storage unit 211 into the data extraction / transfer unit. Transfer to 212. The data extraction / transfer unit 212 extracts specific data from the work interaction DB storage unit 211 and stores it in a buffer. In addition, the contents of the buffer are transferred to a specific data area of the working conversation DB storage unit 211, and are also transferred to the data monitoring unit 213 and the file management unit 214.

The data monitoring unit 213 monitors the data in the buffer of the data extraction / transfer unit 212, and determines the data, and issues an appropriate command to the data extraction / transfer unit 212. The file management unit 212 receives the template from the HTML template storage unit 215, and writes the data transferred from the data extraction / transfer unit 212 to the file. Before creating a new file, save the file that has been created so far. The HTML template storage unit 215 stores an HTML file for displaying a blank homepage, and transfers the HTML template to the file management unit 214.

In the second embodiment, at the stage when the conversation DB is created in the Web server 200, the page field is sorted to the first priority and the date field is sorted to the second priority with respect to the conversation DB. , A question collection for each page is generated, and a Q & A for each question is generated from the sorted dialogue DB.

Next, according to the flowchart of FIG.
The operation of the second embodiment in FIG. 10 will be described. FIG. 11 newly adds to step S11 of the flowchart of FIG. The other steps are the same as in the first embodiment, and will not be described.

Step S21: For the dialogue DB stored in the dialogue DB storage unit 205, the sort unit 210 sorts the page field to the first priority and the date field to the second priority. 211 is stored.

Step S22: Data extraction / transfer unit 21
2 sets a pointer to point to the ID of the first record of the sorted dialogue DB in the work dialogue DB storage unit 211.

Step S23: The HTML file for displaying the blank homepage stored in the HTML template storage unit 215 is transferred to the file management unit 214 and output as a file. That is, the file is initialized.
FIG. 12 shows an initialization HTML file. Also, the UR of the page in the record of the ID currently pointed to by the pointer is stored in the work interaction DB storage unit 211.
A character string excluding the extension of the file name of L (in FIG. 5, for example, “http: //www.out.
door / goods. html ”is“ good ”
s ") is extracted by the data extraction / transfer unit 212 and transferred to the file management unit 214. The file management unit 214
The character string "q &a.html" is added to this character string so that the file name of the question book for each page can be uniquely identified. For example, "goods" means "good
dsq & a. html ”.

Step S24: The file name created in step S23 (for example, "http: // www"
w. outdoor / goods. html ”before“ goodsq & a.html ”),
Add a question number on the same page (for example, "go
The third question on the "ods" page is "goodsq & a
3. html "). This is a file name that can uniquely identify the Q & A for each question.

Step S25: Based on the file name for each question generated in step 24, a tag for linking to the file is generated. The generated tag is inserted immediately before the </ BODY> tag in the file. Further, the data extraction / transfer unit 212 extracts the question sentence in the record of the ID currently pointed to by the pointer from the work interaction DB storage unit 211, and transfers it to the file management unit 214. The file management unit 214 inserts the text of the transferred question text immediately before the </A> tag at the bottom of the HTML file. FIG. 13 shows an example of an HTML file in which the question sentence in the record of ID1 in FIG. 5 is inserted.

Step S26: Data extraction / transfer unit 21
2 sets a pointer to move the record pointing in the sorted dialog DB in the work dialog DB storage unit 211 to the next record.

Step S27: The URL of the page field of the record pointed to by the pointer of the data extraction / transfer unit 212 and the URL of the page field of the record pointed to by the pointer immediately before are stored in the data monitoring unit 213.
Compare. As a result, if the page is the same, the process returns to step S25, and if the page changes, the file management unit 2
14 saves the question text file, and returns to step S25. If it is determined that the page field is empty and there are no more records in the conversation DB, the process proceeds to step S28.

Step S28: Same as step S22, and initializes a pointer to the ID of the first record of the sorted dialogue DB in the work dialogue DB storage unit 211.

Step S29: Initialize the HTML file in the same manner as in step S23, but add a file name that uniquely identifies the Q & A for each question generated in step S24 as the file name.

Step S30: Work interaction DB storage unit 2
From 11, the data extraction / transfer unit 212 extracts the question sentence and the answer sentence in the record of the ID currently pointed to by the pointer, and transfers the same to the file management unit 214. The file management unit 214 inserts the text of the transferred question sentence and answer sentence immediately before the </A> tag at the bottom of the HTML file. FIG. 14 shows an example of an HTML file in which the question sentence in the ID1 record of FIG. 5 is inserted.

Step S31: Data extraction / transfer unit 21
2 sets a pointer to move the record pointing in the sorted dialog DB in the work dialog DB storage unit 211 to the next record.

Step S32: The data monitoring unit 213 monitors the ID of the record currently pointed to by the pointer of the data extraction / transfer unit 212. As a result, if the ID still exists, the process returns to step S29, and the process ends when the ID field becomes empty and there is no more record in the conversation DB.

As described above, by automatically creating a Q & A collection for each page and linking to the original homepage which is the subject of the question, the user's operation as shown in FIG. 15 can be realized. That is, by clicking the Q & A collection icon displayed on each page, a collection of questions generated on that page is displayed. Clicking a specific question displays the question and the answer to the question. As a result, it is possible to reduce the number of Q & As to be browsed at a time by dispersing the collection, and it is possible to present Q & As that depend on the situation where the page is being browsed.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above. The procedures and algorithms in the flowcharts of FIGS.
The information can be provided by being recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, for example, a floppy disk, a memory card, an MO, a CD-ROM, or the like.

[0059]

According to the method of displaying a question acceptance mail on a homepage according to the present invention, it is possible to understand under what circumstances the question was generated and from what kind of viewer.
Therefore, the questions of the viewer can be efficiently fed back to the homepage. In addition, since the Q & A collection for each page can be created automatically, even if the number of questions increases, the Q & A collection creation cost of the administrator and the specific Q of the viewer
& A search cost can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a display drawing of a homepage and a question input format.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of question data.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen for answer data.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data structure of a conversation database (conversation DB).

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a list display of a conversation DB.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a dialog detail display of a dialog DB.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a dialog time series display in a dialog DB.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of FIG. 1;

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a main part of another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of FIG.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of an initialization HTML file.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a generated question statement file.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of a generated question sentence / answer sentence file.

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user operation of the Q & A collection.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 100 client 101 homepage communication section 102 interactive display control section 103 input format communication section 104 question data transmission section 105 question data creation section 106 page monitoring section 107 date / time monitoring section 200 web server 201 homepage storage section 202 homepage communication section 203 input format communication section 204 Question data receiving unit 205 Interactive DB storage unit 206 Answer data creating unit 207 Answer data transmitting unit 208 Display mode change unit 209 Interactive display control unit 210 Sort unit 211 Working interactive DB storage unit 212 Data extraction / transfer unit 213 Data monitoring unit 214 File management unit 215 HTML template storage unit 300 Internet

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A web server storing homepages,
In an Internet system in which a client equipped with browsing software for browsing a homepage is connected to the Internet and can accept questions for the viewers of the homepage, status data indicating the status of the question as well as the questions of the viewer. Collecting question data consisting of user data indicating the attributes of the viewer, and accumulating dialogue data consisting of question data from the viewer and answer data from the homepage administrator. A method of displaying a question acceptance mail on a homepage, comprising a step of displaying accumulated conversation data and a step of changing a display mode. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the display mode includes a mode for displaying a list of the number of questions per page and the number of user data.
Homepage question reception mail, which can be changed to a mode to display the detailed data of questions and answers on the specified page, and a mode to display the number of questions and the number of user data in a fixed period in a dialog chronological order Display method. 3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the page field is sorted first and the date field is sorted second in the accumulated conversation data. A step of generating a question collection for each page from the sorted dialog data; and a step of generating a Q & A for each question from the sorted dialog data, wherein a home page for the Q & A for each page can be created. How to display the question reception email on the homepage. 4. A computer-readable recording medium on which a program for displaying a question acceptance mail on a homepage is recorded, wherein, together with the question of the viewer, status data indicating the situation in which the question occurred, and the attribute of the viewer A process of collecting question data composed of user data indicating the above, a process of accumulating dialogue data composed of question data from the viewer and answer data from the homepage manager, and a process of accumulating the dialogue. A recording medium comprising: a process for displaying data; and a process for changing a display mode. 5. The recording medium according to claim 4, further comprising: a process for sorting the stored dialog data in a page field with a first priority and a date field in a second priority with said sorted dialog data. A recording medium comprising: a process for generating a question collection for each page from data; and a process for generating Q & A for each question from the sorted interactive data.