WO2005029358A1 - Search method and system - Google Patents

Search method and system Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2005029358A1
WO2005029358A1 PCT/GB2003/004113 GB0304113W WO2005029358A1 WO 2005029358 A1 WO2005029358 A1 WO 2005029358A1 GB 0304113 W GB0304113 W GB 0304113W WO 2005029358 A1 WO2005029358 A1 WO 2005029358A1
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WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
category
information
search
items
user
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/GB2003/004113
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Guy Robert Earl Spencer Saward
Original Assignee
University Of Hertfordshire
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
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Publication date
Application filed by University Of Hertfordshire filed Critical University Of Hertfordshire
Priority to PCT/GB2003/004113 priority Critical patent/WO2005029358A1/en
Priority to AU2003267622A priority patent/AU2003267622A1/en
Publication of WO2005029358A1 publication Critical patent/WO2005029358A1/en

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
    • G06F16/954—Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing

Definitions

  • the present invention relates generally to a method and a system for navigating an information source.
  • the Internet provides rapid access to information, communication and commerce yet people struggle to find the best information to achieve their goals. Users' ability to find the most relevant information is limited by current models of web navigation. These models force users to choose between browsing on the one hand and searching for information, using precise terms or key words, on the other. This applies equally to navigating a single site such as. Amazon or to navigating the entire internet with sites such as Google providing separate mechanisms for searching an index of the World Wide Web and browsing . information in a directory.
  • the form of the items and category structure are varied in terms of, size, structure, content and access method, for example : ⁇ Web pages organised under different headings, e.g. Yahoo's directory listings, and accessed through a browser. ⁇ Library catalogue records stored in a database and catalogued by Dewey Decimal classification, and accessed through a dedicated Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) . ⁇ Files contained in a machine (e.g. PC / workstation) and accessed through a directory structure provided and managed by the operating system (e.g. Windows / Unix).
  • a machine e.g. PC / workstation
  • the operating system e.g. Windows / Unix
  • the information held in a system and organised by category structure ' s can usually be navigated in one of two ways, as mentioned - above : ⁇ Users can browse through the system by selecting a category to view and having its contents (in the form of sub-categories and/or items) displayed. ⁇ Users can search through the system by entering a set of query parameters which will then select and display relevant information items .
  • Browsing can be recursive with users going on to display sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. It may also be bidirectional with users selecting to go back up one or more levels by selecting a super-category.
  • the invention provides in its various aspects a method and a system for searching or navigating an information source as defined in the appended independent claims. Preferred or advantageous features of the invention are set out in dependent subclaims .
  • the invention may thus advantageously provide a system for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with one. or. more categories, the system comprising; a category model holding means for acquiring or storing a category model representing categories of the information source; a means for receiving one or more search terms from a user of the system and using the search term(s) to search said source to find a set of items; a means for receiving and caching the set of items; and a means for correlating items in the set of item ' s with categories in the category model .
  • the invention may advantageously provide a method for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with one or more categories, the method comprising the steps of; acquiring a category model representing categories of the information source and caching the category model; searching the information source to find a set of items and storing the set of items in a cache; and • correlating items in the set of items with categories in ' the -category model.
  • the applicants have realised that to make navigation easier, it is necessary to allow users to swap between browsing and searching in an effective fashion. This allows people to a) use the structures that they may be familiar with browsing as a way of interpreting and navigating search results; and/or b) use a search to guide them to categories that they can browse for the right answer.
  • a combined browsing and searching system may advantageously assist the user in narrowing down general queries, expanding very specific .searches to related items and understanding the range of information available.
  • the invention may thus advantageously provide an apparatus that can be used:
  • the ability to add guided navigation to existing systems without change is analogous in some respects to "meta- search engines" where you can have a web page or application invoke one or more search engines indirectly, e.g. Dog pile.
  • the invention extends this with the idea of • "meta-browsing", which may advantageously allow the user to browse a (category) hierarchy without needing to call information directly from a server, or information source.
  • ⁇ Browsing involves any sequence of the selection (step 8) and display of sub/super-classes and their content (15) and/or individual items of information (16) ;
  • Directed Searching is identical to undirected searching except for the inclusion of one or more category restrictions (step 9) . Browsing different categories (15) following a search (whether direct or undirect) will "lose" the search results and require backtracking;
  • ⁇ Guided Navigation is similar to searching (either direct or undirect) in that it may involve the sequential execution of a search (steps 8-11) and the display or search results (12) .
  • the categories of the search results may be retained and used to highlight categories to explore (for example by being overlaid on top of existing browse options rather than being displayed separately) , helping the user to choose where to browse (thus addressing problem 1) ;
  • ⁇ Selecting a category following a search using guided navigation may enable the user to restrict results to relevant parts of the source (problem 2) AFTER the search results are known, thereby freeing them from having to choose before the search (problem 3) ; Browsing categories following a search using guided navigation may enable the user to see items not found by the search (problem 4) , without losing track of the current set of results or the guidance on which categories to browse.
  • Undirected Searching As an alternative to browsing, a user could search the Yahoo directory using a conventional search:
  • the search returns the first 20 results out of a possible 3,121 as well as one category of information "Search Engines and Directories”.
  • search results are scattered throughout the directory with results shown , as coming from diverse categories such as :
  • guided navigation starts with a search which is then used to highlight which of the top level categories, or categories at a predetermined level, contain results.
  • This embodiment 10 could in principle be applied to the Yahoo (RTM) search engine to modify its performance as follows. In the case • of a guided navigation search on Yahoo for "search engines" this would identify the following top level categories ' , and the number of hits they contain, as shown by the bracketed 15. figures. . ⁇ . ⁇ .
  • all of the retrieved search items would be stored or cached locally or at a suitable location.
  • the 0 Yahoo category model has also been acquired and stored or cached at a suitable location.
  • the search items can thus be correlated with the category model to produce the list of categories, and numbers of items shown above. Because both the search items ' and the category model have been5 cached, the user can continue to process or manipulate these data, for example as follows.
  • the categories may advantageously be displayed as part of the search results, for example by0 means of highlighting done in the context of the existing categories as shown in Figure 12. " ' The highlighting could then guide the user down the category structure to Directory> Business and Economy> Shopping and ⁇ Services> Books> Bookstores> Computers>Internet> Titles> World Wide Web with the necessary choices being highlighted at each level (solving problem 1) .
  • Figure 13 shows the highlighting of "Shopping and Services" two levels down in the "Business and economy” category.
  • the search results displayed are restricted to those results that can be found in the selected category, or one of its sub-categories (solving problem 2) , although the search results are
  • Users also may advantageously be free to do a directed search from any specified point in the hierarchy. However, they will be doing this on the basis of a better understanding than in prior art systems of the category structure and the support of the system to ' help guide them to interpret and browse the results.
  • the system of the invention may be implemented as a web server that is accessed by but separate from a web browser.
  • Alternative architectures may include:
  • a client application e.g. a Windows or Unix application
  • ⁇ A client application that is not accessed via a standard browser but retains the ability to retrieve data from web servers or databases.
  • a client application that adds naviguidance to operating file systems, e.g. replacing the search functionality in the Windows Explorer application.
  • aspects of the invention may advantageously be applied in many environments . For example it may be applied to mobile phones and similar devices, and to interactive TV and set top boxes. In the future many such applications may even be absorbed into a standard architecture by the convergence of telecomms and computing technology.
  • the invention may advantageously find.many applications to many information services, such as:
  • FIG. 16 diagrammatically illustrates the structure of a preferred aspect of the invention.
  • a system for navigating an information source containing categorised items of information comprising; a client or browser for receiving or acquiring category information of the information source, for example from a category server; a search device for retrieving information items to the client or browser, each along with an indication of a corresponding category, in response to a search request from the client; and ' a means for correlating items, retrieved to the client with categories received at the client or browser.
  • the information items in the information source are preferably arranged in categories according to a category model that is fixed for the information source, not being dynamically generated or configured for each search or user other than optionally for explicit user modification.
  • the category information is preferably separately and individually held in the category server and is manipulable, searchable or browsable by the client.
  • the system is preferably coupled -to an information server operatively linked to a category server, search device and client and which holds said items of information or information about individual said items of information.
  • the category model is held locally at the client during use, suitably being down-loaded from the category server prior to use.
  • the client is preferably programmed to detect whether an information source is a said information source that has its information items categorised according to a said category model. If it is not a said information source the client is suitably programmed to process and display informatio from the information source in a conventional manner .
  • the information source is tagged with address identifiers for the search device and category server.
  • identifiers or other labels may be used by the client for detecting whether an information source is a said information source.
  • the client is preferably programmed to request or at least receive or acquire, the category model, version information relating thereto or updates thereof from the category server and suitably to then display the category model.
  • the client is preferably suitably programmed to initially display only the top level of the category model.
  • the client is particularly preferably programmed to enable the user to browse through the categories of information using a display device without further requests to either the search device or the' information and category servers and to invoke the search device at any point in the browsing process. This advantage is achieved by the caching of the category modei " and search results.
  • the client is preferably suitably programmed to enable the user to customise or modify the category model to allow them to more easily access those categories of information that they use most frequently.
  • the client preferably suitably enables the user to specify a set of search criteria using either free text or specific attributes to retrieve (through the search device) a limited set of information items to display. This ability is only restricted to the type, of input criteria that the search device will accept or the information that is listed for each item of information on the search results .
  • the client may suitably also enable the user to specify a set of browse criteria using either free text or specific attributes to retrieve (through the information server) a limited set of information items to display. This ability may only be restricted to the types of the information that are provided for each item of information in the search results. • . - .
  • the client is preferably programmed to enable the user (prior to the start of a search) to restrict the display of ' search results to those that are found in a particular category (the search results being the list of information items returned by the search device that match a given user-defined query) . This is preferably not reliant on the ability above and if no restriction is provided by the user, the starting category is taken to be the root node of the category model.
  • the system is preferably programmed to enable display of all sub-categories of information through the display device, not just those containing relevant information, to allow users to select categories of information that they deem to be relevant even if the search device does not indicate that the category contains relevant information.
  • the client is programmed to enable the user to restrict the display of search results to those that are found in a particular category (or its descendants) following a search. This may be done by recursively selecting sub-categories of the category currently being viewed using the display device.
  • the client is programmed to enable the user to expand the display of search results by selecting a parent category (or super-category) of a displayed category.
  • the client is programmed to enable the user to exclude a category (and all its descendants) from any further consideration, thereby eliminating all the information items it contains from further display.
  • the client is programmed to enable the user- to save a set of search results and redisplay it at another time without requests to either the search device or the information and category servers .
  • the client is programmed to enable the user to manipulate and combine sets of search results through the use of logical or Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT.
  • logical or Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT.
  • the present invention provides a method of navigating an information source where the information source consists of items of information that are classified into different groups or categories of information and the method comprises a combination of browsing and searching using the categories of information to partition the information source and the search (es).
  • the method of navigating of the present invention is highly distinctive in its treatment of search results as persistent data that have intrinsic value and that may advantageously be stored or cached, visualised, explored and manipulated.
  • a method for navigating an information source structured into categories according to a category model comprises: searching the information source by specifying one or more search criteria for selecting items of information to view; and browsing the category model by • selecting a category, sub- or super-category to display, retrieving relevant items in the selected category, and, suitably, formatting the display to the desired category layout.
  • a category model is defined to be a structure grouping items of information so that each item is assigned to one or more categories of information, and each category may be grouped with other sub-categories (a category that represents a partition of a higher level category) to form super-categories (a category that is split into sub-divisions) .
  • a category is said to be an end category if it contains no sub-categories, i.e. is not further sub-divided.
  • A is the top category
  • A, B and C are all super- ca tegories
  • B, C, and D are corresponding sub-ca tegories
  • D is an end category.
  • graph theory terminology 'A and D are often referred to as the root and leaf, whereas in lattice theory they would be the top and bottom elements given a partial ordering that runs- from A (highest) to D (lowest) .
  • the category model defines what categories exist and their relationships to each other and may be treated as substantially the totality of the category information for a given information space. It does not generally include a list of the items that are in each category. >
  • the category server is a system ' for- storing and transmitting information about individual categories and their relationships with .other categories and is used to store and transmit the category model.
  • the information server is a system for holding the individual items of information in their entirety, and may - hold in ormation - about the individual items that includes how they are arranged within a particular category model, in the form of web pages, database records, or electronic documents or files of some other format.
  • the search device is a system for specifying user queries that will find and transmit information on items (accessible through the information server) that match the user query, either totally (for Boolean methods such as SQL queries) -or partially (for fuzzy or relevance-based search methods) .
  • the client display device
  • the three other main components - category server, information' server- and search device are used to transmit information to and from the client during the execution of a
  • the links between the information server and the search device and category model may be suitably relatively static connections.
  • the category model information stored by and accessed through the category server may be generated from the information server.
  • the index used by the search service may be generated through any number of processes but does not necessarily require real time access between the two components.
  • the only requirement for the link between these processes is that information items stored by the information server should be linked to at least one category held by the category server, and the search results returned by the search device should include this information and optionally additional information on the individual items accessible through the information server.
  • An information source may be defined, for example, to be a collection of information items that can be accessed and treated as a single collection of information items which may be heterogeneous in nature with items possibly including (but not limited to) disk files accessed via an operating system directory structure, web (HTML) pages accessed via a web (HTTP) server and database records accessed via a database engine.
  • items possibly including (but not limited to) disk files accessed via an operating system directory structure, web (HTML) pages accessed via a web (HTTP) server and database records accessed via a database engine.
  • the search device/server and information server By way of simple exemplification prior to more detailed discussion below of the roles of the search device/server and information server, one may consider the case where a supermarket stocks 30,000 products organised into 300 different categories (e.g. frozen foods sub-divided to frozen pizza as a .sub-category) .
  • the category model would hold information on the product types (i.e. the categories) but may not hold any detail of the individual products. Instead, the information server would hold/access the detail of each individual product - e.g. a frozen, own- brand, cheese and tomato pizza, the description of a wine and- a picture of the label, ' or a list of the contents of a tin of baked beans.
  • the search device/server may take a query regarding one or more products and return summary information about those items matching the query , including which categories each product fitted into.
  • the search device/ server might, for example, reply with the name and price of a pizza, a bottle of wine or a tin of baked beans .
  • Figure 1 is a flowchart of the main steps of the preferred embodiment of the "naviguidance" process of the present invention
  • Figure 2 is a diagram of a simple illustrative category model
  • Figure 3 is a simple schematic diagram of a suitable basic architecture for the system
  • Figure 4 illustrates screen shots for example alternative top level displays for a given category model
  • Figure 5 illustrates a DTD fragment for information items showing how this may be suitably formatted
  • Figure 6 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the browsing process
  • Figure 7 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the searching process
  • Figure 8 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating a mixed-mode navigation process combining browsing and searching;
  • Figure 9 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the naviguidance process
  • Figure 10 ⁇ s a simple category model showing traditional context information which might normally be displayed to the user
  • Figure 11 is a simple category model similar to Figure 10 for the system of the present invention in which high context is displayed to the user.;
  • Figure 12 illustrates the application of an embodiment of the invention to navigate the Yahoo search engine
  • Figure 13 further illustrates the navigation of the ' Yahoo search engine
  • Figure 14 further illustrates the navigation of the Yahoo search engine
  • Figure 15 illustrates a display of information output from an embodiment of the invention.
  • Figure 16 illustrates the structure of a system embodying the invention.
  • nav-e-guidance For the purpose of describing a preferred embodiment of a web-based implementation of naviguidance, referred to throughout as nav-e-guidance, the structure of the components of the preferred architecture are described in more detail as follows .
  • Category server CServ is a combination of a web (HTTP) server and identified files / URLS
  • the Search Service is an identifiable process or server that can be accessed via a URL with specified- arguments that include: search criteria, either as free text or one o more attribute / value pairs; (optional) search location, identifying which parts of ,the information space are to be considered; and (optional) processing of results including how many to return and in what order.
  • the client, or display device, Ddev suitably operates on a client hardware device with appropriate operating system software and comprises; a web-browser capable of generating and processing HTTP requests including HTML and optionally XML; a Nav-e-guide client program that works in tandem with the web-browser to process nav-e-guidance requests; and designated local storage of information comprising a designated location or directory to store nav-e-guide files, nav-e-guide category model files, an optional catalogue of nav-e-guide models, and formatting directives for category models.
  • the information server Iserv is suitably a web (HTTP) server that can present any combination of: Static HTML pages, application documents, e.g. pdf files, Shockwave files etc; or dynamically generated pages based on server processes accessing structured databases or unstructured document stores.
  • the architecture of a nav-e-guidance information source has a number of distinctive features when compared to a standard web-site implementation. Some of these are listed in the table below.
  • existing web sites can be converted into nav-e-guidable information sources by the addition of: a) A processing means to extract the category model information from the web site, either by running database reports on the database used to dynamically generate the website content, or by "crawling.” (i.e.- automatically following) the web-site links; b) A specification of the search input requirements and format; c) A process to format the output of the search process so that it conforms to the nav-e-guide data standards, which are specified through an XML document type definition (DTD) .
  • DTD XML document type definition
  • the process carried out by (a) is an occasional process that has to be run whenever the structure of the category model changes; the process of setting up (b) would typically be a one-off activity; while the process carried out by (c) is required whenever a user queries the information • source .
  • Step 1 Basic Steps for navigation using the nav-e-guidance system, (as set out in Figure 1) Step 1
  • the user needs to request the display of an information source via the naviguide-enabled display device Ddev.
  • the naviguide-enabled display device Ddev In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance,- this is done through the specification of a URL in a web-browser that supports the client Ddev.
  • a check is performed to see if the source is naviguide- enabled. This is suitably done by labelling the information source in such a way that the display device can recognise that the source is naviguideable .
  • the labelling also indicates the location of the various naviguidance components required as shown in figure 3. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this is done by tagging the web page to include the component URLs of the category-server Cserv, information server Iserv, and search device Sserv.
  • the information source is not naviguidable, then the information source is displayed in the conventional manner by the display device Ddev.
  • Step 4 If the information source is naviguidable, then the current category model (CatMod) version information is transferred fro the category server Cserv, identified in step 2, to the display device Ddev.
  • CatMod current category model
  • version information allows users to establish ' whether the site structure has been updated since they last visited the site or whether they can expect to see a familiar site layout.
  • Step 5 The current category model version information is then compared to existing category models available to the display device to identify if further transfer of information from the category server Cserv to the display device Ddev is required. If a model CatMod is found that matches the version information (i.e. source, version and date) for the current information source then no further download is required.
  • version information i.e. source, version and date
  • Step 6 If the current version of the category model is not stored locally by the display device Ddev then the display device makes a request to the category server Cserv to be updated to the current category model .
  • the required category model information that is required to make this update is then transferred from the category server to the display, device.
  • the new information is then merged with the existing information so that the display device is left with a version of the current, updated category model. If no category model is present, then the entire category model will be transferred.
  • this is a standard HTTP request to the site HTTP server for an identified page, which contains the updated category model and conforms to the Nav-e-guide XML DTD.
  • the display device Once the display device has received (or retrieved from local storage) the- category model, this is then formatted and displayed to the user, according to the formatting directives that are part of the category model. In particular, by default this will include: information about the topmost category including title, description etc; and information about the sub-categories contained in the topmost category.
  • the choice of information to be shown is contained in the formatting directives, including which category to display first. By default the first category shown will be the ⁇ topmost category, but it is possible to specify a different category further down in the model.
  • the category model is rendered as HTML through the application of a style sheet to the underlying XML-based representation of the category model .
  • Explicit representation of the category model as distinct from -any selected information to be displayed allows flexibility in choosing what information to display.
  • Explicit separation- of -content from formatting allows flexibility in ' choosing how information is displayed.
  • the user can choose what information to navigate and how. In general, they can choose to: a) search the information source, or some identified parts of it, using a particular query or specified search criteria that expresses their goals and information requirements; b) browse a sub/super-category of information, where the choice of category is determined by the information displayed about the category, and the user's interpretation of that information in relation to their specific goals and requirements; or c) display the detail of a specific item of information that is referenced in the category, such as the details of a specific product or news group posting.
  • this functionality is provided by having all the browse and search choices available through a single page displayed by the nav-e- guide-enabled browser. Selections of information items to display or categories to browse are made by a single click on a link identified through text and/or graphics. Selecting categories to search and specifying the criteria to use are described below.
  • Step 9 If the user chooses to search the information space, they must specify the search criteria to be used.
  • the format for the search criteria e.g. free text vs structured fields, is contained within the specification of the search service which itself is down loaded along with the category model during steps 4, 5 and 6.
  • search is free format text
  • the user simply types the text and optionally specifies a category as the area of the information space to search.
  • the search is structured, then the user needs to specify legal values (based on type or the set of allowed values) for all mandatory attributes or fields, and optionally enter values for other fields and a category to search.
  • legal values based on type or the set of allowed values
  • this is formatted into the appropriate command or message for the search service using the specified input command format.
  • the command has a number of placeholders for the user input. If the search service uses free-text, then the command will have two placeholders and the user search text and selected search category (if one is selected) are merged into the search command. If the search is structured, then the command will have one placeholder for each possible attribute value, and one for the search category. '
  • the specification of the search input allows the nav-e-guide to collect and validate user input which is then merged with a standard call to the search device by specifying a URL with appropriate arguments in order to invoke a server-side script or process.
  • search device Sserv for execution.
  • the details of the search mechanism are transparent to the other components of the system above and beyond the specification of the search device (as part of the Category Model) and the required formatting of search results as specified by the results set.
  • the specification of the search is done entirely through the construction of a URL that specifies: The address of the process or script to be invoked; The input arguments as specified by the user.
  • the execution of the search is initiated by the nav-e-guide client making an HTTP request through the web-browser.
  • the transparency of the search device Sserv means that changes to any system component do not affect other- i components provided that the defined APIs are respected.
  • the specification of a search device Sserv also allows sites to maintain identical but separate search means for naviguidance as opposed to conventional services thereby balancing demand between different user types.
  • the search device Sserv will notify the display device Ddev of the results. If no results are found then, with the exception of an appropriate message being displayed, the information shown by the display device Ddev is essentially unchanged. If the search does find some items that match the user- specified search criteria, then this information, i.e. the number of hits and relevant categories, is transmitted to the display device Ddev.
  • the notification of search results is done through the transmission of a results page, appropriately marked up using the search results DTD.
  • the notification of results is done through transmitting the total number of search results, and optionally the hit counts for the most relevant categories.
  • the actual download of results is controlled by the results transfer process described below. The separation of notification of results from the actual transfer of results allows the download of information to be tailored to site, client and network requirements thereby maximising efficient use of band-width, memory and disk space. It also enables, if required, a fast visualisation of search results prior to the download of any actual search results .
  • This transfer may be done using a single uninterruptible transfer of the complete set of search results, or may be broken into a number of different sets of data which are transferred by one or more processes.
  • search results In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the transfer of search results is done through the transmission of a results page, appropriately marked up using the search results DTD.
  • the search results will be self-contained and therefore contain the basic information about each item returned, including: its name, end (i.e. bottommost) category, and location for the full item description; and (optionally) a short description, and a number of structured attribute values to aid presentation and analysis, e.g. relevance, price, date etc.
  • the search does not have to return any additional information about the item, about and beyond its identity and a pointer to . a full description of the item.
  • a pointer to . a full description of the item.
  • this information is not treated any differently than another attribute that might similarly be used to rank results and is a consequence of nav-e-guidance being designed for both structured database searching and free-format text retrieval .
  • the sequencing of the download is to cater for the tradeoff between the number of results to be downloaded and the delay before users can view any information.
  • 10 A minimal transfer just downloads the hit counts, i.e.
  • step 16 the additional 15. information about specific items would only be shown at step 16 when the user selected a category of information to browse; A maximal transfer transfers all the information in one go (and step 16 is not required to view additional 0 information on each item) , thereby presenting the most detailed and consistent view of the results but at the. expense of the download time.
  • the results of Internet searches will be presented 10 items at a time as this provides a useful 5 amount of information for users to read without imposing a long delay. Users then have to manually request additional portions of the search results if they wish to look beyond the initial results set.
  • the initial search result information can be downloaded to provide useful information on how to explore the result set, prior to downloading a fuller set of results. Incrementally and automatically downloading additional parts of the result set gives the . user even more information to use in identifying the most relevant information.
  • result information into category counts and detailed information makes it possible to minimize the cognitive delay in users starting to assess the types of results available and the possible directions in which to focus a review of the search results.
  • the categories that contain relevant information i.e. items that match the search criteria to a lesser or greater extent
  • This is done by an upward traversal of the category graph, ' starting with the end category of individual items, or with identified sub-categories contained in the result set category counts .
  • the marking of the highlighted categories is done by setting an "attribute on the category object, and the traversal of the category model is done through the super-category attribute.
  • the traversal of the model stops when a previously highlighted item is encountered, although traversal to the root search node is required if item counts are being maintained for the whole model.
  • Tagging highlighted categories means that users are free to browse the result set without losing track or becoming separated from the search results. Categories can be continually updated as more results are incrementally transferred. •
  • search results are subject to a similar process.
  • the search items are tagged so that only those that fall into the category being viewed will be shown.
  • the result set to be displayed will be equal to the entire result set, assuming: search service provides a restricted category search (or that the user chose to search the entire information source) ; the user is still viewing the topmost category specified for the search.
  • search service does not offer category restrictions and/or the user has shifted the viewing focus to a different category
  • some of the search results will be removed from the set of items to be displayed.
  • the marking ' of' the items to display is done by setting an attribute on the . item object in the result set.
  • the context of query becomes more and more specific. As this happens, the number of search results to display will decrease monotonically thereby giving the users less and less information to review where the information itself is more and more relevant to the chosen context.
  • Step 15 The final step in displaying information is to update the display of the chosen category to show:' the sub-categories within the chosen category, including any relevant description; highlighted sub-categories to explore, i.e. that contain information items that match or are relevant to the entered search criteria; information items that match the search / browse criteria.
  • Non-matching items are typically only shown for end sub-categories, i.e. those categories with no sub-categories.
  • the selected category is rendered as HTML, as discussed at step 7 with the initial display of the top-level category.
  • the inclusion of highlighting information is easily incorporate through the use of a specific style for highlighted categories. This allows a number of different stylistic devices to be used to flag up the relevant categories including different colour schemes, text effects such as increased font sizes or emphasis through bold text; or the- .inclusion of graphic points, including for example animated gifs. Examples are shown in Figures 12, 13, 14 and 15.
  • Step 16 At any point in time, the user can request additional information on an individual item of information.
  • the items- can be selected either from the search results as they are presented, or from the choices presented when browsing a category.
  • the additional information on the selected information is provided by the Information Server and is accessed via a unique key or location assigned to each item of information.
  • the item location (as specified in the item DTD fragment of Figure 5) will be a URL that references a static web page, document or server-side script to extract the identified element from a dynamic data store.
  • the "Naviguidance" system of the present invention separates item information into that held by the search service Sserv (as shown above) and more detailed information that is held by the Information Server Iserv. This allows a small amount of information to be held and presented to the user making it easier and faster to assess thepotential information. If the user believes the item is likely to be of interest they can then look at the detailed item information, thereby only incurring the extra down- load time penalty when required.
  • the basic process steps outlined above support the three main types of user behaviour through a single integrated interface.
  • the three main types are: a) Browse only, where' the user chooses their own path through the various categories and sub-categories of information, moving up and down the various levels until they find the appropriate end category and can review individual items of information. b) Search only, where the user enters their search criteria, are presented with a list of search results and then choose the items they wish to review in more detail, c) Mixed mode, where the user switches between browsing and searching, either by navigating to a particular category and starting the search from there, or by moving from the search results to browse sub- categories . -The nav-e-guide implementation of these three types of behaviour all share the same common start, namely steps 1 to 7.
  • step 14 "Browse only" behaviour is represented by cycling through steps 8, 14, 15 and 16 although step 14 is modified. As there are no search results to be shown, all the category items are displayed as a ' single collection of browsable items and step 14 is effectively by-passed.
  • search results Given the search results are presented in a top-down manner, the user is also provided with a clear view of the context of search results, all the choices available to them, -and the best paths- to explore. In this way, naviguidance can combine the relevancy provided by search criteria with the direction provided by the human capability to interpret context and infer meaning. For example, a query on "France beats Germany" might highlight the categories shown in Figure 10, depending on the amount of context shown, i.e. the number of levels of category shown.
  • naviguidance allows the user to more simply distinguish football from foreign affairs, or real news from old news and to get different perspectives from both sides by presenting all possible choices of information to browse or selectively search (see Figure 11 which shows high context - all possible choices shown, and best choices highlighted) .
  • the system and method of the present invention can be implemented in existing information storage and retrieval devices by adding a display device capable of providing naviguidance to the existing architecture where the existing architecture can fulfil the roles of category server, search device and information server. This applies most notably to web sites that have a search service, implicit category model, and links between information items and that category model.
  • the display device may be integrated into existing information presentation and search devices so that its presence (other than through the functionality it provides) is undetectable to a user.
  • the information source provider may, if desired, customise the display of the search results by changing the position, size and layout of the categories, subcategories and search items .

Abstract

Where an information source contains items of information classified into categories, a method for navigating the information sources involves the following steps. A category model representing the categories of the information source is acquired and cached. The information source is then searched to find a set of items of information, which is also cached. The items of information are then correlated with the categories in the category model for presentation to a user.

Description

Search Method and System
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and a system for navigating an information source.
Background to the Invention
The Internet provides rapid access to information, communication and commerce yet people struggle to find the best information to achieve their goals. Users' ability to find the most relevant information is limited by current models of web navigation. These models force users to choose between browsing on the one hand and searching for information, using precise terms or key words, on the other. This applies equally to navigating a single site such as. Amazon or to navigating the entire internet with sites such as Google providing separate mechanisms for searching an index of the World Wide Web and browsing . information in a directory.
When searching (i.e. providing selection criteria to return a subset of items) current technology does not make it easy for a user to enter the right query to bring back the information that they need. An under-specified query (e.g. for "computer patents") is likely to bring back too many items of information for the user to evaluate' (particularly given that .users ' are statistically only likely to read the first five items in a set of results) . An over-specified query (e.g. for "patents for search or navigation on the web using classification techniques") is likely to return no items of information. When browsing (i.e. selecting a link to follow), the problems are similar. It is difficult for the user to make the right choice of subjects to browse when they are presented with fixed, pre-deter ined categories, chosen by the site designer, that may not match the user's needs or understanding. The problem, is made worse when each browse ■ action may require a new page to be requested from the website, thereby slowing the process. More generally, in addition to the internet applications J discussed above, many computer systems store items of information using folders or some form of category structures or class hierarchy (the terms are often used interchangeably) .
The form of the items and category structure are varied in terms of, size, structure, content and access method, for example : ■ Web pages organised under different headings, e.g. Yahoo's directory listings, and accessed through a browser. ■ Library catalogue records stored in a database and catalogued by Dewey Decimal classification, and accessed through a dedicated Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) . ■ Files contained in a machine (e.g. PC / workstation) and accessed through a directory structure provided and managed by the operating system (e.g. Windows / Unix). The information held in a system and organised by category structure's can usually be navigated in one of two ways, as mentioned - above : ■ Users can browse through the system by selecting a category to view and having its contents (in the form of sub-categories and/or items) displayed. ■ Users can search through the system by entering a set of query parameters which will then select and display relevant information items .
Browsing can be recursive with users going on to display sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. It may also be bidirectional with users selecting to go back up one or more levels by selecting a super-category.
There are may different ways of searching an information base with variations in: '
■ Inputting query terms against one or more named item attributes (subject, date) , with or without system support or augmentation. ■ • Determining relevant items using Boolean conditions (e.g. SQL queries) or some kind of relevance measures, e.g. term weights.
■ Displaying search results as a list or multiple lists of results .
For example, imagine a user wanting to find information in the search engine Yahoo (RTM) on search engines. If they wished to do so by browsing or directed search they might choose to restrict their activity to the Computers and Internet section of the site. But within this they would then have to choose between various predetermined categories, of which any of the following might be relevant:
■ Computer science ■ Information technology
■ Internet
■ Product information and reviews
■ Programming and development
■ Web directories ■ World Wide Web The user is then faced with the problem that any of these categories may contain the information he seeks but that excluding any categories may lead to failure to find that information.
In general, several problems therefore arise in existing methods of navigation: 1. When users are browsing they must choose which category to explore to find the information they seek. This can be difficult, if not impossible, if the class hierarchy is large, the user is not familiar with the structure or ► does not understand the language used to describe the classes and therefore the choices available. 2. When users are searching across a whole information • . source (sometimes .described as an undirected search), a . query may bring back too much information and the user will be unable to determine which of the relevant items the system returns actually meets with their information needs . 3. When users are searching just part of an information source (sometimes described as a directed search) the user needs to choose which category (or in some cases categories) to search, which raises the same issues as identified in problem 1. In addition they may over- constrain the search by inappropriate category choice and miss relevant information. 4. When users are searching for information (either in the whole or part of a source) they may use a query that does not bring back all the relevant information, although all the relevant information could in principle be '-found by browsing the source if they knew the right places to look.
Given the investment that organisations already have in information systems and services, it is also important that any solution to these problems can be integrated with and take advantage of existing search-enabled web-sites without major restructuring of the web-site or the information that it contains.
Summary of the Invention
The invention provides in its various aspects a method and a system for searching or navigating an information source as defined in the appended independent claims. Preferred or advantageous features of the invention are set out in dependent subclaims .
In a first aspect, the invention may thus advantageously provide a system for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with one. or. more categories, the system comprising; a category model holding means for acquiring or storing a category model representing categories of the information source; a means for receiving one or more search terms from a user of the system and using the search term(s) to search said source to find a set of items; a means for receiving and caching the set of items; and a means for correlating items in the set of item's with categories in the category model .
In a second aspect, the invention may advantageously provide a method for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with one or more categories, the method comprising the steps of; acquiring a category model representing categories of the information source and caching the category model; searching the information source to find a set of items and storing the set of items in a cache; and • correlating items in the set of items with categories in 'the -category model. The applicants have realised that to make navigation easier, it is necessary to allow users to swap between browsing and searching in an effective fashion. This allows people to a) use the structures that they may be familiar with browsing as a way of interpreting and navigating search results; and/or b) use a search to guide them to categories that they can browse for the right answer. < By focussing on the presentation and exploration of the search results, a combined browsing and searching system may advantageously assist the user in narrowing down general queries, expanding very specific .searches to related items and understanding the range of information available.
In a preferred aspect, the invention may thus advantageously provide an apparatus that can be used:
■ To navigate existing systems without requiring changes to those systems.
■ To support a method of "guided navigation" that addresses the problems identified above.
The ability to add guided navigation to existing systems without change is analogous in some respects to "meta- search engines" where you can have a web page or application invoke one or more search engines indirectly, e.g. Dog pile. The invention extends this with the idea of • "meta-browsing", which may advantageously allow the user to browse a (category) hierarchy without needing to call information directly from a server, or information source.
Examples of each of the following types of navigation are given in the following section: ■ Browsing
■ Searching (or undirected searching)
■ Directed searching
■ Guided navigation, embodying the invention.
Each of these types of navigation listed above is described in flow charts in the specific embodiment described below and involves various combinations of steps.
■ Browsing (see Figure 6) involves any sequence of the selection (step 8) and display of sub/super-classes and their content (15) and/or individual items of information (16) ;
■ Undirected Searching (Figure 7) involves the sequential execution of a search (steps 8-11) , the display of search results (12) 'and examination of• individual results (16) as required.
■ Directed Searching is identical to undirected searching except for the inclusion of one or more category restrictions (step 9) . Browsing different categories (15) following a search (whether direct or undirect) will "lose" the search results and require backtracking;
■ Guided Navigation is similar to searching (either direct or undirect) in that it may involve the sequential execution of a search (steps 8-11) and the display or search results (12) .
Guided navigation is different from (direct or indirect) searching in that when search results are returned:
■ The categories of the search results may be retained and used to highlight categories to explore (for example by being overlaid on top of existing browse options rather than being displayed separately) , helping the user to choose where to browse (thus addressing problem 1) ;
■ Selecting a category following a search using guided navigation may enable the user to restrict results to relevant parts of the source (problem 2) AFTER the search results are known, thereby freeing them from having to choose before the search (problem 3) ; Browsing categories following a search using guided navigation may enable the user to see items not found by the search (problem 4) , without losing track of the current set of results or the guidance on which categories to browse.
These differences can be seen in the following examples:
Browsing
A user looking for information on search engines could browse, using a conventional browser, through the following sets of URLs, for the reasons set out below each URL:
http://dir.yahoo.com/
User starts at top level of directory.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_lnternet/ User selects most obvious choice of "Computers and Internet" .
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet
User selects "Internet" .
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_lnternet/Software/lnternet
Having selected "Software" at the previous level, the user is redirected to the "Software>Internet" sub-category of "Computers and Internet". With hindsight, the user may realise that this is the path they should have chosen even if it may not have been obvious at the time.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_lnternet/Software/lnternet/ World_Wide_Web/ The "World Wide Web" sub-category might be the most obvious place to find information on search engine software for the web. However, if the user selects this sub-category, they are now four levels down in the hierarchy and none of the available choices look relevant.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_lnternet/
Backtracking to "Computers and Internet" allows the user to explore another path, but which should they try now?
Undirected Searching As an alternative to browsing, a user could search the Yahoo directory using a conventional search:
http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p=search+engine&h=c
This is the URL generated by searching the whole directory for the- directory for the terms "search engine". The search returns the first 20 results out of a possible 3,121 as well as one category of information "Search Engines and Directories".
The search results are scattered throughout the directory with results shown , as coming from diverse categories such as :
■ AIDS/HIV>Web Directories
■ All-in-one Search Pages ■ B2B>Internet Software>Search
■ B2B>Search Engine Optimisation Services
■ Books>World Wide Web
■ Browsers>Opera
■ Computer Graphics>3D ■ Internet>Conferences and Events
■ Lodging>Reservation Services
■ Search Engines>Google
■ Search Engines and Directories>Comparisons
■ Search Engines and Directories>Directories ■ Search Engines and Directories>Submit a Site ■ Searching the Web ■ World Wide Web>Conferences
If the user then wishes to see what books are available on the subject they could browse the category Books>World Wide Web which redirects them to the following category ■ Directory>Business and Economy>Shopping and Services>Books>Bookstores> Computers>Internet>Titles>World Wide Web
' They are now lost deep in the site hierarchy and have lost the set of search results. If they wish to see which results were relevant in this category they must redo the search, using a category restriction. ■ ■ ' - ' • ' Directed Searching To do a conventional directed search in Yahoo, a user browses their way to a category of information they wish to see,. enters a query, selects the "just this category" option and presses the "search" button. In practice this may involve the following steps. http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy>Shopping_and_Services>Books> Bookstores>Computers>lntemet>Titles>World_Wide_Web/ Browsing to the World Wide Web books is a challenge in itself. The user is eight levels down in the classification and the navigation process involves at least two automatic redirections. http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p=search+engine&y=n&e=8772678&f=0%3 A2766678%3A2718086%3A8101£eA9243%3A13593967%3A10110273%3A781 3933%3A8717743%3A8767701%3A8772678&r=Business+and+Economy%02S hopping+and+Services%02Books%02Bookstores%02Computers%02lnternet%0 2Titles%02World+Wide+Web Doing a directed search within the WWW books category does enable the user to identify the four books on search engines within this category . However, a directed search at this level does not identify any other types of books on ' related subj ects or in different formats . http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p=search+engines&y=n&e=44868406&f=0% 3A2766678%3A2718086%3A8101 %3A9243%3A13593967%3A10110273%3A7 819840%3A44868406&r=Business+and+Economy+%02Shopping+and+Service s%02Bookstores%02Electronic+Books%02Titles For example a directed search in Business and Economy>Shopping and Services> Books>Bookstores>Electronic Books>Titles identifies three electronic books . http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p=search+engines&y=n&e=13593967&f=0% 3A2766678%3A2718086%3A8101 %3A9243%3A13593967&r=Business+and+E conomy%02Shopping+and+Services%02Books Directed searches in the category Business- and Economy>Shopping and Services>Books identifies even more relevant search results including books on search engine marketing . http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy>Shopping_and_Services>Books> Bookstores>Com'puters>lntemet>Titles>Business/Marketing/ Browsing the category Directory> Business and Economy>Shopping and Services> Books>Bookstores>Computers>Internet>Titles>Business> Marketing shows items that would include information on search engines, even though the records do not contain the terms search engine in the title. The process shows that directed searches are useful in restricting search results to particular categories but: ■ The user needs to find which category to restrict the search to (problem 1) ■ If the user specifies too narrow a category (or worse an irrelevant category) then they will miss relevant information (problem 3) • ■ It is difficult to move between the search results and browsing other items in a category that may be relevant (problem 4) .
5 Guided Navigation In a preferred embodiment of the invention, guided navigation starts with a search which is then used to highlight which of the top level categories, or categories at a predetermined level, contain results. This embodiment 10 could in principle be applied to the Yahoo (RTM) search engine to modify its performance as follows. In the case • of a guided navigation search on Yahoo for "search engines" this would identify the following top level categories', and the number of hits they contain, as shown by the bracketed 15. figures. . ■ . ■ .
Business_and_Economy (26) Computers_and_Internet (42) Entertainment (5) Government (1) Health (2) Recreation (3) Regional (16) _ Social_Science (1) Society_and_Culture (4)
In the embodiment, all of the retrieved search items would be stored or cached locally or at a suitable location. The 0 Yahoo category model has also been acquired and stored or cached at a suitable location. The search items can thus be correlated with the category model to produce the list of categories, and numbers of items shown above. Because both the search items' and the category model have been5 cached, the user can continue to process or manipulate these data, for example as follows.
With guided navigation, the categories may advantageously be displayed as part of the search results, for example by0 means of highlighting done in the context of the existing categories as shown in Figure 12. " ' The highlighting could then guide the user down the category structure to Directory> Business and Economy> Shopping and <Services> Books> Bookstores> Computers>Internet> Titles> World Wide Web with the necessary choices being highlighted at each level (solving problem 1) . For example, Figure 13 shows the highlighting of "Shopping and Services" two levels down in the "Business and Economy" category.
10 As the user chooses a category, the search results displayed are restricted to those results that can be found in the selected category, or one of its sub-categories (solving problem 2) , although the search results are
■15. retained in cache memory. For example, selecting Business and Economy would limit the displayed results to 26 items, as shown in Figure 13. The user is now restricting the displayed results based on which categories actually have results (solving problem 3) .
20 When the user browses to World Wide Web books the system not only displays the two search results that can be found in this category, but also shows, for example under the heading "Site Listings", the other items in the category
25 that might be relevant (solving problem 4) , as shown in Figure 14.
At any point in the guided navigation process the user has access to the complete content of the information source
30 and is free to browse other categories that appear interesting. For example, the user may wish to explore the subject of "Intellectual Property" in Figure 13 even though it is not highlighted. When they wish to return to the search results, they simply need to select the appropriate
35 category of results they wish to view. This is made possible by the system keeping a cache of search results so they are not lost until another search is done.
Users also may advantageously be free to do a directed search from any specified point in the hierarchy. However, they will be doing this on the basis of a better understanding than in prior art systems of the category structure and the support of the system to' help guide them to interpret and browse the results.
The system of the invention may be implemented as a web server that is accessed by but separate from a web browser. Alternative architectures may include:
■ A browser add-on that embeds the naviguidance components in the browser itself;
■ A client application (e.g. a Windows or Unix application) that is not accessed via a standard browser but retains the ability to retrieve data from web servers or databases. ■ A client application that adds naviguidance to operating file systems, e.g. replacing the search functionality in the Windows Explorer application.
Aspects of the invention may advantageously be applied in many environments . For example it may be applied to mobile phones and similar devices, and to interactive TV and set top boxes. In the future many such applications may even be absorbed into a standard architecture by the convergence of telecomms and computing technology.
The invention may advantageously find.many applications to many information services, such as:
■ e-commerce websites;
■ Intranets used for knowledge management; B Information accessed via library catalogues. Figure 16 diagrammatically illustrates the structure of a preferred aspect of the invention.
According to an aspect of the present invention there may thus be provided a system for navigating an information source containing categorised items of information, . comprising; a client or browser for receiving or acquiring category information of the information source, for example from a category server; a search device for retrieving information items to the client or browser, each along with an indication of a corresponding category, in response to a search request from the client; and ' a means for correlating items, retrieved to the client with categories received at the client or browser.
The information items in the information source are preferably arranged in categories according to a category model that is fixed for the information source, not being dynamically generated or configured for each search or user other than optionally for explicit user modification.
The category information is preferably separately and individually held in the category server and is manipulable, searchable or browsable by the client.
The system is preferably coupled -to an information server operatively linked to a category server, search device and client and which holds said items of information or information about individual said items of information.
Preferably the category model is held locally at the client during use, suitably being down-loaded from the category server prior to use. The client is preferably programmed to detect whether an information source is a said information source that has its information items categorised according to a said category model. If it is not a said information source the client is suitably programmed to process and display informatio from the information source in a conventional manner .
Preferably the information source is tagged with address identifiers for the search device and category server.
These identifiers or other labels may be used by the client for detecting whether an information source is a said information source.
For a selected said information .source the client is preferably programmed to request or at least receive or acquire, the category model, version information relating thereto or updates thereof from the category server and suitably to then display the category model. The client is preferably suitably programmed to initially display only the top level of the category model.
The client is particularly preferably programmed to enable the user to browse through the categories of information using a display device without further requests to either the search device or the' information and category servers and to invoke the search device at any point in the browsing process. This advantage is achieved by the caching of the category modei" and search results.
The client is preferably suitably programmed to enable the user to customise or modify the category model to allow them to more easily access those categories of information that they use most frequently. The client preferably suitably enables the user to specify a set of search criteria using either free text or specific attributes to retrieve (through the search device) a limited set of information items to display. This ability is only restricted to the type, of input criteria that the search device will accept or the information that is listed for each item of information on the search results .
The client may suitably also enable the user to specify a set of browse criteria using either free text or specific attributes to retrieve (through the information server) a limited set of information items to display. This ability may only be restricted to the types of the information that are provided for each item of information in the search results. • . - .
The client is preferably programmed to enable the user (prior to the start of a search) to restrict the display of ' search results to those that are found in a particular category (the search results being the list of information items returned by the search device that match a given user-defined query) . This is preferably not reliant on the ability above and if no restriction is provided by the user, the starting category is taken to be the root node of the category model.
The system is preferably programmed to enable display of all sub-categories of information through the display device, not just those containing relevant information, to allow users to select categories of information that they deem to be relevant even if the search device does not indicate that the category contains relevant information.
Preferably the client is programmed to enable the user to restrict the display of search results to those that are found in a particular category (or its descendants) following a search. This may be done by recursively selecting sub-categories of the category currently being viewed using the display device. Preferably the client is programmed to enable the user to expand the display of search results by selecting a parent category (or super-category) of a displayed category.
Preferably the client is programmed to enable the user to exclude a category (and all its descendants) from any further consideration, thereby eliminating all the information items it contains from further display.
Preferably the client is programmed to enable the user- to save a set of search results and redisplay it at another time without requests to either the search device or the information and category servers .
Preferably the client is programmed to enable the user to manipulate and combine sets of search results through the use of logical or Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT.
in a further aspect, the present invention provides a method of navigating an information source where the information source consists of items of information that are classified into different groups or categories of information and the method comprises a combination of browsing and searching using the categories of information to partition the information source and the search (es).
In a further aspect, the method of navigating of the present invention is highly distinctive in its treatment of search results as persistent data that have intrinsic value and that may advantageously be stored or cached, visualised, explored and manipulated. According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for navigating an information source structured into categories according to a category model, which method comprises: searching the information source by specifying one or more search criteria for selecting items of information to view; and browsing the category model by • selecting a category, sub- or super-category to display, retrieving relevant items in the selected category, and, suitably, formatting the display to the desired category layout.
By way of explanation, a category model is defined to be a structure grouping items of information so that each item is assigned to one or more categories of information, and each category may be grouped with other sub-categories (a category that represents a partition of a higher level category) to form super-categories (a category that is split into sub-divisions) . A category is said to be an end category if it contains no sub-categories, i.e. is not further sub-divided. In the model illustrated in Figure 2 below, A is the top category; A, B and C are all super- ca tegories; B, C, and D are corresponding sub-ca tegories; and D is an end category. In graph theory terminology 'A and D are often referred to as the root and leaf, whereas in lattice theory they would be the top and bottom elements given a partial ordering that runs- from A (highest) to D (lowest) .
The only restriction on the arrangements of categories is that there are no cycles-, e.g. If C is a sub-category of B which is a sub-category of A then A cannot be a sub- category of C (or B even) . • In a preferred embodiment, the category model defines what categories exist and their relationships to each other and may be treated as substantially the totality of the category information for a given information space. It does not generally include a list of the items that are in each category. >
In a preferred embodiment, the category server is a system ' for- storing and transmitting information about individual categories and their relationships with .other categories and is used to store and transmit the category model.
In a preferred embodiment, the information server is a system for holding the individual items of information in their entirety, and may - hold in ormation - about the individual items that includes how they are arranged within a particular category model, in the form of web pages, database records, or electronic documents or files of some other format.
In a preferred embodiment, the search device,- or search server, is a system for specifying user queries that will find and transmit information on items (accessible through the information server) that match the user query, either totally (for Boolean methods such as SQL queries) -or partially (for fuzzy or relevance-based search methods) .
Preferably, there may be direct and active connections between the client (display device) and the three other main components - category server, information' server- and search device. These are used to transmit information to and from the client during the execution of a
"naviguidance" process embodying the present invention.
The links between the information server and the search device and category model may be suitably relatively static connections. For example, the category model information stored by and accessed through the category server may be generated from the information server. Similarly, the index used by the search service may be generated through any number of processes but does not necessarily require real time access between the two components.
For the purpose of describing the process of navigation, the only requirement for the link between these processes is that information items stored by the information server should be linked to at least one category held by the category server, and the search results returned by the search device should include this information and optionally additional information on the individual items accessible through the information server.
An information source may be defined, for example, to be a collection of information items that can be accessed and treated as a single collection of information items which may be heterogeneous in nature with items possibly including (but not limited to) disk files accessed via an operating system directory structure, web (HTML) pages accessed via a web (HTTP) server and database records accessed via a database engine.
By way of simple exemplification prior to more detailed discussion below of the roles of the search device/server and information server, one may consider the case where a supermarket stocks 30,000 products organised into 300 different categories (e.g. frozen foods sub-divided to frozen pizza as a .sub-category) . The category model would hold information on the product types (i.e. the categories) but may not hold any detail of the individual products. Instead, the information server would hold/access the detail of each individual product - e.g. a frozen, own- brand, cheese and tomato pizza, the description of a wine and- a picture of the label, 'or a list of the contents of a tin of baked beans. The search device/server may take a query regarding one or more products and return summary information about those items matching the query , including which categories each product fitted into. The search device/ server might, for example, reply with the name and price of a pizza, a bottle of wine or a tin of baked beans .
Description of Specific Embodiments and Best Mode of the Invention
A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be more particularly described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:
Figure 1 is a flowchart of the main steps of the preferred embodiment of the "naviguidance" process of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a diagram of a simple illustrative category model;
Figure 3 is a simple schematic diagram of a suitable basic architecture for the system;
Figure 4 illustrates screen shots for example alternative top level displays for a given category model;
Figure 5 illustrates a DTD fragment for information items showing how this may be suitably formatted;
Figure 6 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the browsing process;
Figure 7 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the searching process; Figure 8 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating a mixed-mode navigation process combining browsing and searching;
Figure 9 is a part of the flowchart of Figure 1 illustrating the naviguidance process;
Figure 10 άs a simple category model showing traditional context information which might normally be displayed to the user;
Figure 11 is a simple category model similar to Figure 10 for the system of the present invention in which high context is displayed to the user.;
Figure 12 illustrates the application of an embodiment of the invention to navigate the Yahoo search engine;
Figure 13 further illustrates the navigation of the 'Yahoo search engine;
Figure 14 further illustrates the navigation of the Yahoo search engine;
Figure 15 illustrates a display of information output from an embodiment of the invention; and
Figure 16 illustrates the structure of a system embodying the invention.
Description of the Preferred Embodiment
For the purpose of describing a preferred embodiment of a web-based implementation of naviguidance, referred to throughout as nav-e-guidance, the structure of the components of the preferred architecture are described in more detail as follows .
Referring firstly to Figure 3, the. Category server CServ is a combination of a web (HTTP) server and identified files / URLS
Figure imgf000026_0001
The Search Service. Sserv is an identifiable process or server that can be accessed via a URL with specified- arguments that include: search criteria, either as free text or one o more attribute / value pairs; (optional) search location, identifying which parts of ,the information space are to be considered; and (optional) processing of results including how many to return and in what order.
The client, or display device, Ddev, suitably operates on a client hardware device with appropriate operating system software and comprises; a web-browser capable of generating and processing HTTP requests including HTML and optionally XML; a Nav-e-guide client program that works in tandem with the web-browser to process nav-e-guidance requests; and designated local storage of information comprising a designated location or directory to store nav-e-guide files, nav-e-guide category model files, an optional catalogue of nav-e-guide models, and formatting directives for category models. The information server Iserv is suitably a web (HTTP) server that can present any combination of: Static HTML pages, application documents, e.g. pdf files, Shockwave files etc; or dynamically generated pages based on server processes accessing structured databases or unstructured document stores.
A Comparison with Existing Web Architectures
The architecture of a nav-e-guidance information source has a number of distinctive features when compared to a standard web-site implementation. Some of these are listed in the table below.
Conventional Web-Site Nav-e-guide Information Source
Undifferentiated storage of Explicit representation and information with category processing of category info info embedded in standard distinct from information site architecture items or any other information
Transfer and caching of Transfer and caching of information done at page information at category level model and result set level
Manual requests for transfer Automated, background of partitioned information downloading of category from server, e.g. when user information and search selects new category or extra results set of search results to browse
Viewing new (unviewed) Viewing new categories categories results in request managed locally with no to server for new page and additional request to server requires additional transfer of info Search service not explicitly Search service is identified identified as separate process with published component of architecture and machine-readable API is treated the same as any (Application Program other server side Interface) . functionality. API is defined by user interface.
It should be noted that in many cases, existing web sites can be converted into nav-e-guidable information sources by the addition of: a) A processing means to extract the category model information from the web site, either by running database reports on the database used to dynamically generate the website content, or by "crawling." (i.e.- automatically following) the web-site links; b) A specification of the search input requirements and format; c) A process to format the output of the search process so that it conforms to the nav-e-guide data standards, which are specified through an XML document type definition (DTD) .
The process carried out by (a) is an occasional process that has to be run whenever the structure of the category model changes; the process of setting up (b) would typically be a one-off activity; while the process carried out by (c) is required whenever a user queries the information • source .
Basic Steps for navigation using the nav-e-guidance system, (as set out in Figure 1) Step 1
The user needs to request the display of an information source via the naviguide-enabled display device Ddev. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance,- this is done through the specification of a URL in a web-browser that supports the client Ddev.
Step 2
A check is performed to see if the source is naviguide- enabled. This is suitably done by labelling the information source in such a way that the display device can recognise that the source is naviguideable . The labelling also indicates the location of the various naviguidance components required as shown in figure 3. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this is done by tagging the web page to include the component URLs of the category-server Cserv, information server Iserv, and search device Sserv.
The 'separate identification of the various components allows' for distributed architecture in which individual components can be exchanged without affecting other components, k
Step 3
If the information source is not naviguidable, then the information source is displayed in the conventional manner by the display device Ddev.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, if the nav-e- guidance component URLs are not present, then- the web- browser will operate as normal, without the intervention of the nav-e-guide client.
By embedding naviguidance capability into an information display the information source appears unaltered to non- naviguide display devices.
Step 4 If the information source is naviguidable, then the current category model (CatMod) version information is transferred fro the category server Cserv, identified in step 2, to the display device Ddev.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this is done by passing control to the ήaviguide client program in the client/display device Ddev, which then requests the category model version information. This is a standard HTTP request to the site HTTP server for an identified page, which contains the version information and 'conforms to the. Nav-e-guide XML DTD.
The use of version information allows users to establish ' whether the site structure has been updated since they last visited the site or whether they can expect to see a familiar site layout.
Step 5 The current category model version information is then compared to existing category models available to the display device to identify if further transfer of information from the category server Cserv to the display device Ddev is required. If a model CatMod is found that matches the version information (i.e. source, version and date) for the current information source then no further download is required.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this is done by comparing the current category model version information with that held in category model files directly accessible by the nav-e-guide client. If a catalogue of category models is available then this will be scanned for matching models. If the directory is not available then a search will be made of the 'category model directory. Each category model file in the directory will be read to check the version information. Given that version information can be used to track whether users have the most up to date information, transfer time can be saved if no new information is required.
Step 6 If the current version of the category model is not stored locally by the display device Ddev then the display device makes a request to the category server Cserv to be updated to the current category model . The required category model information that is required to make this update is then transferred from the category server to the display, device. The new information is then merged with the existing information so that the display device is left with a version of the current, updated category model. If no category model is present, then the entire category model will be transferred.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this is a standard HTTP request to the site HTTP server for an identified page, which contains the updated category model and conforms to the Nav-e-guide XML DTD.
If an update is required this can be done in such a way as to minimise the transfer of information. Once the information is stored locally, users can navigate the category model without a need to request further information from the information source or category server Cserv.
Step 7
Once the display device has received (or retrieved from local storage) the- category model, this is then formatted and displayed to the user, according to the formatting directives that are part of the category model. In particular, by default this will include: information about the topmost category including title, description etc; and information about the sub-categories contained in the topmost category.
The choice of information to be shown is contained in the formatting directives, including which category to display first. By default the first category shown will be the ■ topmost category, but it is possible to specify a different category further down in the model.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the category model is rendered as HTML through the application of a style sheet to the underlying XML-based representation of the category model .
Explicit representation of the category model as distinct from -any selected information to be displayed allows flexibility in choosing what information to display. Explicit separation- of -content from formatting allows flexibility in' choosing how information is displayed.
Step 8
Once information (i.e. title, description, sub-categories, etc) for the relevant category is shown by the display device, the user can choose what information to navigate and how. In general, they can choose to: a) search the information source, or some identified parts of it, using a particular query or specified search criteria that expresses their goals and information requirements; b) browse a sub/super-category of information, where the choice of category is determined by the information displayed about the category, and the user's interpretation of that information in relation to their specific goals and requirements; or c) display the detail of a specific item of information that is referenced in the category, such as the details of a specific product or news group posting.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this functionality is provided by having all the browse and search choices available through a single page displayed by the nav-e- guide-enabled browser. Selections of information items to display or categories to browse are made by a single click on a link identified through text and/or graphics. Selecting categories to search and specifying the criteria to use are described below.
Given that browse and search information is displayed in a unified fashion, users can more easily swap between browsing and searching information.' In addition, the ability to restrict searches means that users will get a more focussed set of search results.
Step 9 If the user chooses to search the information space, they must specify the search criteria to be used. The format for the search criteria, e.g. free text vs structured fields, is contained within the specification of the search service which itself is down loaded along with the category model during steps 4, 5 and 6.
If the search is free format text, then the user simply types the text and optionally specifies a category as the area of the information space to search.
If the search is structured, then the user needs to specify legal values (based on type or the set of allowed values) for all mandatory attributes or fields, and optionally enter values for other fields and a category to search. Once the query has been specified, this is formatted into the appropriate command or message for the search service using the specified input command format. The command has a number of placeholders for the user input. If the search service uses free-text, then the command will have two placeholders and the user search text and selected search category (if one is selected) are merged into the search command. If the search is structured, then the command will have one placeholder for each possible attribute value, and one for the search category.'
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the specification of the search input allows the nav-e-guide to collect and validate user input which is then merged with a standard call to the search device by specifying a URL with appropriate arguments in order to invoke a server-side script or process.
It- is easy to specify and change the interface between the basic search offered by the information space search device Sserv, and the naviguide enabled search process provided by the display device Ddev. In addition, the quality of the searching is not compromised, given there is client-side validation that occurs at the input device. Finally, given that search results are stored locally and can be filtered by the display device, it is possible to add restrictive searches (i.e. limit searches to specific categories) to existing search services that do not offer that capability.
Step 10
Once the user has entered the appropriate search criteria, this information is transferred to the search device Sserv for execution. The details of the search mechanism are transparent to the other components of the system above and beyond the specification of the search device (as part of the Category Model) and the required formatting of search results as specified by the results set. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the specification of the search is done entirely through the construction of a URL that specifies: The address of the process or script to be invoked; The input arguments as specified by the user.
The execution of the search is initiated by the nav-e-guide client making an HTTP request through the web-browser.
The transparency of the search device Sserv means that changes to any system component do not affect other- i components provided that the defined APIs are respected. The specification of a search device Sserv also allows sites to maintain identical but separate search means for naviguidance as opposed to conventional services thereby balancing demand between different user types.
Step 11
Following execution of the search, the search device Sserv will notify the display device Ddev of the results. If no results are found then, with the exception of an appropriate message being displayed, the information shown by the display device Ddev is essentially unchanged. If the search does find some items that match the user- specified search criteria, then this information, i.e. the number of hits and relevant categories, is transmitted to the display device Ddev.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the notification of search results is done through the transmission of a results page, appropriately marked up using the search results DTD. The notification of results is done through transmitting the total number of search results, and optionally the hit counts for the most relevant categories. The actual download of results is controlled by the results transfer process described below. The separation of notification of results from the actual transfer of results allows the download of information to be tailored to site, client and network requirements thereby maximising efficient use of band-width, memory and disk space. It also enables, if required, a fast visualisation of search results prior to the download of any actual search results .
Step 12
Once notification of the search results has been passed to the display device Ddev then the actual search results themselves will be transferred. This transfer may be done using a single uninterruptible transfer of the complete set of search results, or may be broken into a number of different sets of data which are transferred by one or more processes.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the transfer of search results is done through the transmission of a results page, appropriately marked up using the search results DTD. The search results will be self-contained and therefore contain the basic information about each item returned, including: its name, end (i.e. bottommost) category, and location for the full item description; and (optionally) a short description, and a number of structured attribute values to aid presentation and analysis, e.g. relevance, price, date etc.
In general, the search .does not have to return any additional information about the item, about and beyond its identity and a pointer to . a full description of the item. However, by 'default almost all information spaces do a short item description and the majority also return a relevancy score that is used to rank the search results. Despite the prevalence of relevance information, this information is not treated any differently than another attribute that might similarly be used to rank results and is a consequence of nav-e-guidance being designed for both structured database searching and free-format text retrieval . 5 The sequencing of the download is to cater for the tradeoff between the number of results to be downloaded and the delay before users can view any information. At the two extremes : 10 A minimal transfer just downloads the hit counts, i.e. the number of total hits' and the number of hits for the most relevant categories, without any item information. This allows a fast highlighting of the relevant categories (steps 13-15) . In this case, the additional 15. information about specific items would only be shown at step 16 when the user selected a category of information to browse; A maximal transfer transfers all the information in one go (and step 16 is not required to view additional 0 information on each item) , thereby presenting the most detailed and consistent view of the results but at the. expense of the download time.
Typically the results of Internet searches will be presented 10 items at a time as this provides a useful 5 amount of information for users to read without imposing a long delay. Users then have to manually request additional portions of the search results if they wish to look beyond the initial results set. 0 With a nav-e-guidance system, the initial search result information can be downloaded to provide useful information on how to explore the result set, prior to downloading a fuller set of results. Incrementally and automatically downloading additional parts of the result set gives the . user even more information to use in identifying the most relevant information.
The structuring of result information into category counts and detailed information makes it possible to minimize the cognitive delay in users starting to assess the types of results available and the possible directions in which to focus a review of the search results.
Step 13
Once the search results (including some, all or none of the actual search result items) have" been transferred to the display device, the categories that contain relevant information (i.e. items that match the search criteria to a lesser or greater extent) are identified and tagged. This is done by an upward traversal of the category graph, ' starting with the end category of individual items, or with identified sub-categories contained in the result set category counts .
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the marking of the highlighted categories is done by setting an "attribute on the category object, and the traversal of the category model is done through the super-category attribute. The traversal of the model (for highlighting purposes) stops when a previously highlighted item is encountered, although traversal to the root search node is required if item counts are being maintained for the whole model.
Tagging highlighted categories means that users are free to browse the result set without losing track or becoming separated from the search results. Categories can be continually updated as more results are incrementally transferred. •
Step 14
Once relevant categories are tagged for highlighting, search results are subject to a similar process. The search items are tagged so that only those that fall into the category being viewed will be shown. When the search results are initially retrieved, the result set to be displayed will be equal to the entire result set, assuming: search service provides a restricted category search (or that the user chose to search the entire information source) ; the user is still viewing the topmost category specified for the search.
If this is not the case (i.e. the search service does not offer category restrictions and/or the user has shifted the viewing focus to a different category) , then some of the search results will be removed from the set of items to be displayed.
' In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the marking' of' the items to display is done by setting an attribute on the . item object in the result set.
As the user chooses sub-categories to browse, the context of query becomes more and more specific. As this happens, the number of search results to display will decrease monotonically thereby giving the users less and less information to review where the information itself is more and more relevant to the chosen context.
Step 15 The final step in displaying information is to update the display of the chosen category to show:' the sub-categories within the chosen category, including any relevant description; highlighted sub-categories to explore, i.e. that contain information items that match or are relevant to the entered search criteria; information items that match the search / browse criteria.
Where the information is just being browsed, i.e. no search has been, executed and steps 9-13 have been omitted, all information items in the category will be shown. If a search has been executed, then the matching items will be shown separately from non-matching items. Non-matching items are typically only shown for end sub-categories, i.e. those categories with no sub-categories.
In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the selected category is rendered as HTML, as discussed at step 7 with the initial display of the top-level category. The inclusion of highlighting information is easily incorporate through the use of a specific style for highlighted categories. This allows a number of different stylistic devices to be used to flag up the relevant categories including different colour schemes, text effects such as increased font sizes or emphasis through bold text; or the- .inclusion of graphic points, including for example animated gifs. Examples are shown in Figures 12, 13, 14 and 15.
The choice of which devices to employ is left to the site designer.
The use of a down-loaded category model and the use of highlighting attributes for relevant categories and information items makes the navigation and manipulation of search results fast and effective. Only new information is required to be downloaded, and it is easy to assess if items have been previously viewed. The use of style sheets ' and semantic mark-up makes it easy to ensure the presentation of search results match any corporate and site style guidelines, while at the same time allowing experimentation to assess the most effective ways of guiding users to relevant information. Step 16 At any point in time, the user can request additional information on an individual item of information. The items- can be selected either from the search results as they are presented, or from the choices presented when browsing a category. The additional information on the selected information is provided by the Information Server and is accessed via a unique key or location assigned to each item of information. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, the item location (as specified in the item DTD fragment of Figure 5) will be a URL that references a static web page, document or server-side script to extract the identified element from a dynamic data store.
The "Naviguidance" system of the present invention separates item information into that held by the search service Sserv (as shown above) and more detailed information that is held by the Information Server Iserv. This allows a small amount of information to be held and presented to the user making it easier and faster to assess thepotential information. If the user believes the item is likely to be of interest they can then look at the detailed item information, thereby only incurring the extra down- load time penalty when required.
Traditional Processes
The basic process steps outlined above support the three main types of user behaviour through a single integrated interface. The three main types are: a) Browse only, where' the user chooses their own path through the various categories and sub-categories of information, moving up and down the various levels until they find the appropriate end category and can review individual items of information. b) Search only, where the user enters their search criteria, are presented with a list of search results and then choose the items they wish to review in more detail, c) Mixed mode, where the user switches between browsing and searching, either by navigating to a particular category and starting the search from there, or by moving from the search results to browse sub- categories . -The nav-e-guide implementation of these three types of behaviour all share the same common start, namely steps 1 to 7. Referring to Figure 6, "Browse only" behaviour is represented by cycling through steps 8, 14, 15 and 16 although step 14 is modified. As there are no search results to be shown, all the category items are displayed as a' single collection of browsable items and step 14 is effectively by-passed.
Referring To Figure 7, "Search only" behaviour is - represented by steps 8 to 12 with step 16 repeated for .each- individual search result, and step 12 repeated for each.new page of search results. Successive searches simply restart the navigation process at step 8. Traditional "Mixed mode" navigation covers all the steps identified above. However, overlaying the steps makes it clear that there is a discontinuity in the-process. Although it is possible to move from searching (step 12) to an identified item (step 16) , and then browse related items (steps 15 & back to 16) the link with the search results is lost.
Getting back to relevant items found by the search requires backtracking through steps 15, 8, 16 and then 12. Switching from searching to browsing in this manner has additional problems. If a user simply ends up in the end category of the selected item then it will be more difficult to understand the context of the information. Even if the user is shown all the categories leading from the top most category to the current end category (and thereby see some context information) they will "not be able to easily explore or evaluate other possible choices of categories .
Referring to Figure 9 Naviguidance, by contrast, enables users to combine search and browsing in an effective manner that avoids the problems- of discontinuity, missing context and hidden choices. It is possible to switch between the search cycle (steps 8-15) and' to the browsing cycle (steps 14-16) without losing the focus on relevant information provided by the user specified search criteria.
Given the search results are presented in a top-down manner, the user is also provided with a clear view of the context of search results, all the choices available to them, -and the best paths- to explore. In this way, naviguidance can combine the relevancy provided by search criteria with the direction provided by the human capability to interpret context and infer meaning. For example, a query on "France beats Germany" might highlight the categories shown in Figure 10, depending on the amount of context shown, i.e. the number of levels of category shown. However, naviguidance allows the user to more simply distinguish football from foreign affairs, or real news from old news and to get different perspectives from both sides by presenting all possible choices of information to browse or selectively search (see Figure 11 which shows high context - all possible choices shown, and best choices highlighted) .
Extensions to Conventional Navigation The blurring of browsing and searching made possible by naviguidance can be seen in "restricted browsing". This is ' effectively a search where users specify very broad or - indirect criteria, such as a price band between £50 and £100. Only those categories with products meeting the specified criteria are highlighted, and items meeting these criteria are more easily visible within a specific category. However, the resulting experience has a feel that is more like browsing. The user is far more in control of where they search and their interests, and the specified criteria are more like a mask, hiding unwanted products, than a filter, which is effectively letting , relevant products through.
Another benefit that comes from the interaction of searching and browsing comes from being able to actively discount or ignore particular parts of the information space. This is common behaviour when .browsing - if an area or category initially appears relevant but turns out to contain irrelevant information then the user makes an active choice to stop exploring it. This is not possible using conventional search, or mixed mode behaviour. However, using naviguidance it is possible to reject a category, thereby unhighlighting all sub-categories and removing all the search results they contain from the list potentially relevant items. A final point to make is that as naviguidance is based on an explicit representation and storage of the category model and result set within the Display Device, it is possible to explore a set of search results without further recourse to the Search Service or the Information Server. In the case of web-based nav-e-guidance, this means that review of search results is possible even when off-line from the Internet. In the case of byte-based or time' metered services, e.g. mobile telephony services such as WAP or GPRS, this off-line model could result in substantial savings. The system and method of the present invention can be implemented in existing information storage and retrieval devices by adding a display device capable of providing naviguidance to the existing architecture where the existing architecture can fulfil the roles of category server, search device and information server. This applies most notably to web sites that have a search service, implicit category model, and links between information items and that category model.
The display device may be integrated into existing information presentation and search devices so that its presence (other than through the functionality it provides) is undetectable to a user.
The information source provider may, if desired, customise the display of the search results by changing the position, size and layout of the categories, subcategories and search items .

Claims

Clai s
1. A system for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with - one or more categories, the system comprising; a category model holding means for acquiring or storing a category model representing categories of the information source; a means for receiving a search term from a user of the system and using the search term to search said source to find a set of items; a means for receiving and caching the set of items; and a means for correlating items in the set of items with categories in the category model.
A system according to Claim 1, further comprising a means for receiving one or more category selections from the user and limiting the search to a directed search of the selected category (ies) .
A system according to Claim 1 or 2, comprising a means for displaying to the user a set of sub-categories within a category selected by the user, together with a number of items correlated with each sub-category.
A system according to Claim 3, in which sub-categories within the selected category and containing no items are displayed.
5. A system according to any preceding Claim, comprising a means for displaying items in a category if the category is an end category.
6. A system according to any preceding Claim, which enables the user to carry out browsing operations within the category model held by the category model holding means .
7. A system according to any preceding Claim, comprising a search means enabling the user to carry out searching operations on the set of items cached in the item receiving means.
8. A method for navigating an information source containing items of information each associated with one or more categories, the method comprising the steps of; acquiring a category model representing categories of the information source and caching the category model; searching the information source to find a. set of items and storing the set of items in a cache; and correlating items in the set of items with categories in the category model.
9. A method according to Claim -9, further comprising the step of limiting the search of the information source to a user-selected category.
10. A method according to Claim 8 or 9, comprising the step of displaying a set of sub-categories within a user- selected category, together with a number of items correlated with each sub-category.
11. A method according to Claim 10, in which sub-categories within the user-selected category and containing no items are displayed.
12. A method according to any of Claims 8 to 11, comprising the step of displaying items in a category if the category is an end category.
13. A method according to any of Claims 8 to 12, further comprising the step of browsing within the cached category model.
14. A method according to any of Claims 8 to 13, further comprising the step of searching within the cached set of items.
15. A system for navigating an information source containing items of information classified into categories, comprising; a client for receiving or acquiring category information of the information source, for example from a category server; - a search device for retrieving information items to the client, each along with an indication of a corresponding category, in response to a search request from the client; and a means for correlating items retrieved to the client with categories received at the client.
16. A system as defined in Claim 15, in which the search device and the correlating mans form components of the client at a local processor or PC.
17. A system as defined in Claim 15 or 16, in which the information items in the information source are arranged in categories' according to a category model that is fixed for the information source, and which is not dynamically generated or configured for each search or user other than- optionally for explicit user modification, the category information being held in client and locally manipulable, or browsable, by the user.
18. A system as claimed in Claim 15, 16 or 17, wherein the system further is coupled to an information server operatively linked to the category server, search device and client and which holds said items of information or information about individual said items of information.
19. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 18, wherein the category model is held locally at the client during use. >
20. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 19, wherein the client is programmed to detect whether an information source is a said information source that has its information items categorised according to a said category model.
21. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 20, wherein the information source "is tagged with address identifiers for the search device and category server.
22. A system as claimed in Claim 20 wherein a label is provided on the information source for use by the client for detecting whether the information source is a said information source.
23. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 22 wherein, for a selected said information source, the client is programmed to request or receive the category model or version information relating thereto or updates thereof from the category server.
24. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 23, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to browse through the categories of information without further requests to either the search device o'r the information - and category servers and optionally to invoke the search device at any point in the browsing process.
25. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 24, wherein 5 the client is programmed to enable the user to customise or modify the category model, for example to allow them to more easily access those categories of information that they use most frequently.
10 26. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 25, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to specify a set of search criteria, for example using either free text or specific attributes, to retrieve a set of information items to display.
15. .
27. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 26, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to specify a set of browse criteria, for example using either free text or specific attributes, to retrieve a set of 0 information items to display.
28. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 27, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user (prior to the start of a search) to restrict the display of5 search results to those that are -found in a particular category.
29. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 28 wherein the system is programmed to enable display of all sub-0 categories of information through the display device, not just those containing relevant information, to allow users to select categories of information that they deem to be relevant even if the search device does not indicate that the category contains relevant5 • information. -.
30. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 29, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to restrict the display of search results to those that are found in a particular category (or its descendants) following a search.
31. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 30, wherein the client is programmed for use of visual highlighting (for example through text formatting, the inclusion of graphic symbols, or both) to indicate the sub- •r categories of the starting category (and by recursion to the relevant descendants) that contain results that are relevant to a particular user-defined query.
32. A system as claimed in. any of Claims 15 to 31, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to expand the display of search results by selecting the parent category of a displayed category.
33. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 32, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to exclude a category (and all its descendants) from any further consideration", thereby eliminating all the information items it contains from further display, optionally without deleting those information items from cache storage.
34. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 33, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to save a set of search results and redisplay it at another time without requests to either the search device or the information and category servers .
35. A system as claimed in any of Claims 15 to 34, wherein the client is programmed to enable the user to manipulate and combine sets of search results through the use of logical or Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT.
36. A method of navigating an information source where the information source contains items of information that are classified into different categories according to a category model and the method comprises a combination of browsing and searching using the categories to partition the information source and the search (es).
37. A method as claimed in Claim 36, which method comprises : searching the information source by specifying one or more search criteria for selecting items of information to view; correlating the selected items with the categories in the category model; and browsing the category model by selecting a category, sub- or super-category to display, and retrieving relevant items in the selected category.
38. A method as claimed in Claim 37, wherein the method comprises looking at detailed information by selecting a required item from a selected category and displaying the item.
39. A computer-readable medium carrying a program for programming a general-purpose computer to carry out a method as defined in any of Claims 8 to 14 or 36 to 38.
40. A general-purpose computer programmed to carry out a method as defined in any of Claims 8 to 14 or 36 to 38.
41. An information source navigable by a method as defined in any of Claims 8 to 14 or 36 to 38.
42. An information source navigable by a system as defined in any of Claims 1 to 7 or 15 to 35.
43. A navigation method substantially as described herein with reference to the drawings .
44. A navigation system substantially as described herein with reference to the drawings.
PCT/GB2003/004113 2003-09-17 2003-09-17 Search method and system WO2005029358A1 (en)

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