Patent ID: 9354958
Filing Date: 2016-05-31
CPC Classification: G06F,G06N

Claim Text:
1. A method of personalizing an error message for a user, the method comprising the steps of: a computer modifying a help system that is supplied with a software application, so that interactions with the help system by users of the software application are monitored, and so that the help system includes instructions about respective error conditions which indicate respective problems with an operation of the software application, each instruction being in first, second, third, and fourth formats, the first format being compatible with a first learning style of first users of the software application, the first learning style indicating a preference for verbal input in a form of spoken words, the second format being compatible with a second learning style of second users of the software application, the second learning style indicating a preference for verbal input in a form of written words, the third format being compatible with a third learning style of third users of the software application, the third learning style indicating a preference for visual input without verbal input, and the fourth format being compatible with a fourth learning style of fourth users of the software application, the fourth learning style indicating a preference for a mixture of visual and verbal input; subsequent to the step of modifying, the computer detecting the error conditions which indicate the problems with the operation of the software application; based on the help system being modified and the interactions by users of the software application being monitored, the computer tracking and recording selections by the user of (1) content of the help system with which the user is interacting to resolve the detected error conditions and (2) types of the interactions with the help system by the user, the interactions accessing the content of the help system; the computer determining a learning format, a learning type, an interactivity level, an interactivity type, and a semantic density as attributes of the content of the help system with which the user is interacting to resolve the detected error conditions, the learning format being a format of the content that the user utilizes to learn about the detected error conditions and actions to resolve the error conditions, the format of the content being a format of text, image, audio, video or application, the learning type being a type of the content that the user utilizes to learn about the detected error conditions and the actions to resolve the error conditions, the type of the content being a learning exercise, a simulation, a questionnaire, a figure, an index, a table of information, a narrative text, an exam, or a lecture, the interactivity level being an indicator of an amount of interactivity provided by the content that the user utilizes to learn about the detected error conditions and the actions to resolve the error conditions, the interactivity type being a type of interactivity provided by the content that the user utilizes to learn about the detected error conditions and the actions to resolve the error conditions, the type of interactivity being active, expositive, or a mixture of active and expositive, and the semantic density being an indicator of a number of instances of the learning type that is preferred by the user to learn about the detected error conditions and the actions to resolve the error conditions; based on the content of the help system with which the user is interacting to resolve the detected error conditions, the types of the interactions with the help system, and the attributes of the content of the help system which include the learning format, the learning type, the interactivity level, the interactivity type, and the semantic density, the computer generating a model of a learning style of the user, the model being a Bayesian network; based on the model and the model being the Bayesian network, the computer determining the learning style of the user is the first, second, third, or fourth learning style; subsequent to the step of determining the learning style is the first, second, third, or fourth learning style, the computer detecting an error condition included in the error conditions which indicate the respective errors in the operation of the software application; based on the detected error condition, the computer retrieving a predetermined error message from the data repository that includes a plurality of predetermined error messages, the retrieved predetermined error message describing the detected error condition; if the learning style of the user was determined to be the first learning style, the computer augmenting the predetermined error message with a first instruction included in the instructions in the first format, if the learning style of the user was determined to be the second learning style, the computer augmenting the predetermined error message with a second instruction included in the instructions in the second format, if the learning style of the user was determined to be the third learning style, the computer augmenting the predetermined error message with a third instruction included in the instructions in the third format, or if the learning style of the user was determined to be the fourth learning style, the computer augmenting the predetermined error message with a fourth instruction included in the instructions in the fourth format; and the computer presenting the augmented error message to the user during an interaction between the user and the software application.