Patent Publication Number: US-9898534-B2

Title: Automatically adapting a user interface

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to European Application No. 06121623.0 filed on Oct. 2, 2006, and entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM OF AUTOMATICALLY ADAPTING A USER INTERFACE,” which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. 
     FIELD 
     Embodiments of the invention(s) relate to a method of automatically adapting a user interface, particularly adapting a web portal user interface, and a computer apparatus, data processing program, computer program product, and computer data signal therefore. 
     BACKGROUND 
     For providing data access to various information channels through a single user interface, portals are known, particularly portals on the world-wide-web (www). Typically, such portals are accessed by a number of different users showing differing usage behaviour, using a variety of computer system types to access the portal, having different permissions to access specific data provided by the portal, being subject to different networking conditions when accessing the portal, etc. Consequently, current portal solutions offer functionality to enhance user experience by adapting the user interface depending on the user and/or usage conditions. Such portals can detect the markup language supported in the web-browser of the user, or the version information of the web-browser, and associate these findings to manually pre-programmed, different versions of web-pages or portlets, which are then appropriately presented to the user. Further, systems are known that provide content filtering according to user permissions or attributes. Oftentimes, these systems also allow users to manually modify the way in which information is presented by the portal according to their personal preferences. 
     Some systems have been proposed that provide capabilities for deriving a profile based on user behaviour. Another system automatically generates a profile based on information given by a user in combination with dynamic user behaviour while using the portal, such as his navigating within an application. This profile is presented to the user, who may provide feedback to this profile. From these information sources, a final profile is derived that is being used by the portal to adapt its user interface. 
     SUMMARY 
     A portal server comprises memory, a profile manager, a profile selector, and a profile initiator. The profile manager is configured to manage a plurality of profile records in a profile database. The profile selector is configured to select at least one of the plurality of profile records based on context data collected at a client and context data collected at the portal server. The collected context data corresponds to particular user interaction activity with the portal server. The profile initiator is configured to adapt a user interface based on the profile selected by the profile selector. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The present embodiments may be better understood, and numerous objects, features, and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. 
         FIG. 1 a    depicts a block diagram showing a schematic overview of an embodiment of a portal server according to the present invention. 
         FIG. 1 b    depicts a block diagram showing a schematic overview of an embodiment of a client according to the present invention. 
         FIG. 2  depicts a block diagram giving an overview of an embodiment of the method according to the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  depicts a block diagram showing a detail of an embodiment of the method. 
         FIG. 4  depicts is a schematic showing an exemplary profile database with profile records. 
         FIG. 5  depicts a schematic showing a data structure of an embodiment when matching context data with profile records. 
         FIG. 6  depicts a schematic design diagram of an exemplary profile database. 
         FIG. 7  depicts a schematic showing a instantiation attributes stored with profile records in an exemplary profile database. 
     
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENT(S) 
     The description that follows includes exemplary systems, methods, techniques, instruction sequences and computer program products that embody techniques of the present embodiments of the invention(s). However, it is understood that the described embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known instruction instances, protocols, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obfuscate the description. 
       FIG. 1 a    is a block diagram giving a system overview of an embodiment of a portal server according to the present invention. Portal server computer system  1  is connected to internet or other computer network  100  and comprises a context detector  2  coupled to a profile selector  3 . Profile selector  3  is in turn coupled to profile instantiator  4 , the latter being coupled to a user interface  6  to enable the profile instantiator  4  to control (or adapt) the user interface  6 . User interface  6  is coupled to profile selector  3  to enable the user interface  6  to provide manual profile selection to a user. For adapting the user interface, profile instantiator  4  is connected to and triggers instantiation handlers  24 ,  24 ′,  24 ″ that are connected to rendering engine  21 , one or more portal applications  22 , or one or more portal base services  23 , respectively, as shown. 
     A request processor  20  comprised in server  1  is responsible for handling incoming requests and appropriate responses, and parses and validates incoming requests. Rendering engine  21  is invoked for each request to collect and combine markup fragments from different portal application components that make up the response. Portal applications  22  provide the actual content that a portal system provides. This group of components make use of portal base services  23  that offer functionality like search, content management, or collaboration via instant messaging or team rooms. 
     Context detector  2 , profile selector  3  and profile instantiator  3  are configured to be integrated into the request processing flow in the portal server  1 . Context detector  2  will be executed with every processed request. Profile instantiator  4  will trigger different handler instances  24 ,  24 ′,  24 ″ dependent on the profile definition. These instances are specifically bound to portal server components as the rendering engine  21 , the applications  22  or base portal services  23 . A specific instantiation handler  24  is invoked by profile instantiator  4  with a set of parameters that are selected according to the decision made by profile selector  3 . For example, a navigation handler could be invoked to hide certain pages from the currently available navigation tree, or a collaboration service handler could change the user current instant messaging status to ‘do not disturb’. Those instantiation handlers  24 ,  24 ′,  24 ″ will make use of programming interfaces available at the specific component to change the component&#39;s behaviour. Profile manager  5  is registered as portal application. 
     Further, in the embodiment shown, profile instantiator  4  is also coupled to profile manager  5  which in turn accesses a profile database  7 . Alternatively, database  7  can be embodied based on a file system or any other type of persistent data store. Communication channels between profile instantiator  4 , profile manager  5 , and profile database  7  are all fully bidirectional with regard to read and write access to profile data. 
     Additionally, profile selector  3  is directly bidirectionally coupled to the profile database  7  in the same manner in this embodiment. 
       FIG. 1 b    is a block diagram giving a system overview of an embodiment of a client computer according to the present invention. Client  10  is connected to portal  1  over internet  100  and comprises a browser  11 . Extension modules  12  and  13  are integrated into browser  11 . Extension module  12  is connected to client-side application programs  14 ,  14 ′,  14 ″ in order to query the status of the application programs, thus collecting client-side context data of the user environment, such as the presence and state of active desktop applications on the client. In a similar manner, extension module  13  is connected to dedicated sensor application  15  which collects specific usage context information, such as the current state of a client-side IP phone or additional peripheral devices. Client-side context data thus collected are transmitted to portal server  1  either by network request/response on network  100  or by out-of-band communication over another channel. 
     In a typical usage scenario, as is illustrated in  FIG. 2 , in step  200  context detector  2  locally collects server-side context data of a particular user interaction, for instance from the portal usage history or other server-side data, typically including current navigational position of a user, or currently available contacts of a user. Further, in this step, context data from network requests from client  10  to the server  1  are collected, such as current IP address or current client device type. Such data from network requests typically reflect the network system configuration in the course of a particular usage transaction. 
     Further, in step  202 , extension modules  12  and  13  of browser  11  in client  10  query application programs  14 ,  14 ′,  14 ″ or sensor application  15  to obtain client-side context data as described above, and communicate the data to the server  1  in step  204 . 
     Thus, context detector  2  collects all data that is needed to appropriately detect the usage conditions, as will be described in more detail below, and then delivers these data to profile selector  3 . 
     In step  210 , profile selector  3  matches the set of collected context data to a database  7  having multiple profile records stored, each of which represents an interface adaptation profile and contains matching information and control information. Those profile records are either owned by certain users (user specific profiles) or available to all users (global profiles). User specific profiles are available only to the user that created them. Once profile selector  3  has found an optimal match between the detected context data and the matching information of a profile record, and no manual selection has been made to override this optimal match as described below, it delivers the control information of that respective profile record to profile instantiator  4 . Alternatively, profile selector  3  merely sends a profile identifier to profile instantiator  4 , which then accesses profile database  7  to extract the control information of the respective profile record. Such an access can either be a direct access, or can be handled via profile manager  5 . 
     In step  212 , the server provides an interface for allowing a user to select a profile manually. This is particularly advantageous if an automatic selection does not optimally reflect the desired user interface settings. Profiles that are currently available to the user are loaded and provided to the user via user interface  6 . Then, users are offered a dialog in which they may select a better matching profile from the list of available profiles. This selection performed by the user is submitted by user interface  6  to the profile selector  3  first. The profile selector validates and processes the profile selection request and invokes the profile instantiator  4  accordingly; profile instantiator  4  instantiates and sets the new profile as described below. 
     In step  220 , profile instantiator  4  interprets the control information and changes state and content of user interface elements in user interface  6  by appropriately triggering instantiation handlers  24 ,  24 ′,  24 ″, as given above and as will be further exemplified below. Changes to the user interface may affect its appearance, for instance graphical appearance, or the nature or availability of presented information. 
     Types of context data elements that are detected in step  200  and its potential use for adapting a user interface element appropriately are explained in the following table: 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 Current date: 
                 The profile could be different if the 
               
               
                   
                 date is a Saturday/Sunday: a “leisure” 
               
               
                   
                 profile would be applied. 
               
               
                 Current time: 
                 The profile could be different between 
               
               
                   
                 8 am and 5 pm than between 5 pm and 
               
               
                   
                 11 pm: between 8 am and 5 pm an 
               
               
                   
                 “office“ profile might be applied, 
               
               
                   
                 after 5 pm a “leisure” profile 
               
               
                   
                 might be applied. 
               
               
                 Current time zone: 
                 The profile could be different if the 
               
               
                   
                 user has changed the time zone setting: 
               
               
                   
                 the user is on travel and the 
               
               
                   
                 “travelling” profile might be 
               
               
                   
                 applied. 
               
               
                 Current geographic 
                 A change of these could be an 
               
               
                 location/current 
                 indication that the user is on travel 
               
               
                 regional settings: 
                 and the “travelling” profile 
               
               
                   
                 might be applied 
               
               
                 Current IP address: 
                 A change could be an indication that 
               
               
                   
                 the location has changed. Depending 
               
               
                   
                 on the IP address the “office” or 
               
               
                   
                 the “leisure” profiles might be 
               
               
                   
                 applied. 
               
               
                 Current client device: 
                 The profile could be different 
               
               
                   
                 depending on the client device used: 
               
               
                   
                 the user might use his office PC at 
               
               
                   
                 office, his PDA when traveling, a 
               
               
                   
                 tablet PC at home. The corresponding 
               
               
                   
                 profiles might be “office”, “traveling”, 
               
               
                   
                 leisure”. 
               
               
                 Current markup: 
                 See “current client device“ 
               
               
                 Current navigational 
                 The profile could be changed if the 
               
               
                 position: 
                 user starts to navigate to different 
               
               
                   
                 navigational positions. For instance, 
               
               
                   
                 navigating to a node entitled “Games“ 
               
               
                   
                 could indicate that the profile 
               
               
                   
                 “leisure” might be applied. 
               
               
                 Current actions performed: 
                 The profile could be changed if the 
               
               
                   
                 user starts to work on certain tasks: 
               
               
                   
                 working on certain business process 
               
               
                   
                 related tasks could indicate that the 
               
               
                   
                 profile “office” might be applied. 
               
               
                 Current tasks available: 
                 The profile could be different if there 
               
               
                   
                 are a lot of business process related 
               
               
                   
                 tasks available: the “office” profile 
               
               
                   
                 might be applied. 
               
               
                 Current contacts 
                 If a lot of business contacts are 
               
               
                 available: 
                 available (indicates “business time”) 
               
               
                   
                 the profile to be applied might be 
               
               
                   
                 “office”, if a lot of private contacts 
               
               
                   
                 are available the profile to be applied 
               
               
                   
                 might be “leisure”. 
               
               
                 Current user profile: 
                 The currently selected profile can be 
               
               
                   
                 used to determine a better matching 
               
               
                   
                 profile for changed contextual 
               
               
                   
                 situations. E.g. if the user is currently 
               
               
                   
                 in “leisure - news and sports”, it is 
               
               
                   
                 more likely that the next profile is 
               
               
                   
                 “leisure - favourite games” than 
               
               
                   
                 “office - monday morning”. 
               
               
                 Page referer: 
                 The last link that the user followed 
               
               
                   
                 to the current page can be used to 
               
               
                   
                 determine the context of the user&#39;s 
               
               
                   
                 current work. 
               
               
                 Browser History: 
                 The list of visited web sites/pages can 
               
               
                   
                 be used to determine the context of the 
               
               
                   
                 user&#39;s current work. 
               
               
                 State of client-side 
                 If the user is talking to a collegue via 
               
               
                 devices: 
                 an IP phone, the instant messaging 
               
               
                   
                 awareness state (e.g. “online and 
               
               
                   
                 available”, “busy”, “away from 
               
               
                   
                 keyboard”, “offline”) can reflect 
               
               
                   
                 this by setting the user&#39;s state to, on 
               
               
                   
                 the phone‘. If MS PowerPoint is running 
               
               
                   
                 in presentation mode, the IM awareness 
               
               
                   
                 should set the state to, do not disturb‘. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     After the context data have been collected for a particular usage situation, as described above, the profile selector identifies the best match between the detected context data and the profile records stored in the database. 
     One example for a matching procedure is illustrated in  FIG. 3 . For some or all of the context data elements of the types pointed out in the table above, that add up to the detected context data, one context data element is taken in step  300  and a difference value to a corresponding data element of a profile record, or more precisely, of the matching information of a profile record, is calculated in step  310 . 
     This calculation is performed by context dependent handler classes that are able to perform reasonable analysis of the collected data. For instance, internet protocol (IP)—addresses are matched against IP ranges, or “available tasks” are evaluated based on task properties and search criteria. 
     Then, this difference value is weighted by multiplication with a weighting factor in step  320 . After each weighting, the difference value is added to a correspondence value representing the degree of matching between collected context data and the currently examined profile record. Alternatively, all weighted difference values are calculated first and are then summed up. 
     Thus, a correspondence value (being a weighted sum of the difference values of each available context data element and record profile data element) is generated for each profile record that is applicable to the current user. The record corresponding to the optimal correspondence value can be chosen and the current context data and the chosen profile is finally stored for further profile adaptation in the data storage in step  350 . 
     An example for this is given in  FIGS. 4 and 5 .  FIG. 4  shows a record profile database  7  having three record profiles “Office”, “Travelling”, and “Leisure”, shown in rows, and the matching information of these profile records according to different data types, shown in columns. For instance, profile “Office” has a “Date” matching range “from Monday to Friday”, and a “Time” matching range “from 8 am to 5 pm”. Further, weighting factors associated with the different data types are stored in this database, 20% for “Date”, 15% for “Time”, etc. 
       FIG. 5  shows a visualization of how the matching is performed. First, a correspondence value for profile record “Office” is to be calculated. Context data detected in step  200  are shown in row  3 . In this case, a context data element of type “Date” is selected, and the difference value is evaluated in step  310  by comparing context data element value “Tuesday” to the data matching range of the profile record, “Monday to Friday”. Since Tuesday is between Monday and Friday, the difference value is set to 1 in step  310 , and weighted with the corresponding factor of 20%, so that the weighted difference value for this comparison is 20%. This is similarly performed for all the other data types shown in the same row of this Figure, and the sum of all weighted difference values, i.e. the correspondence value, is 95% for profile “Office”. 
     Similarly, correspondence values are calculated for the other profiles. In this case “Office” is the best match and is the result of step  210 . 
     Generally, a profile record is designed as shown in  FIG. 6 . A profile record comprises two main set of data objects: profile attributes values and profile instantiation values. 
     Profile attributes are compared against collected contextual data to compute the correspondence value. Therefore profile attributes belong to a certain type of context attribute, while each context attribute has a designated evaluator and detector component assigned: The context detector collects the data for a context attribute (e.g. “day of week”=“Monday”). The context evaluator compares this value with the corresponding attribute value in the profile (e.g. “day of week” between “Monday” and “Friday”) to computer the correspondence value. 
     Profile instantiation values describe the modifications to the user interface that are performed during profile instantiation. An instantiation handler is responsible to modify the user interface according to an instantiation value (e.g. “start page”=“My favourite games”) that is defined in the currently selected profile. 
     Then, as described with respect to step  220 , this profile is applied by profile instantiator  4 . Profile instantiator  4  accesses the control information associated with the best matching profile, “Office” in this example, and changes state and content of user interface elements in user interface  6 . An example of such control information associated with profile records “Office”, “Travelling” and “Leisure” is shown in  FIG. 7 . User interface element parameters of types “Theme”, “Default Skin”, “Available Pages”, “Contacts”, etc. are shown, such as the “Business” display theme for profile “Office”, or the availability of pages “Welcome”, “My Travel”, “My Weather” for profile “Travelling”. 
     Consequently, when state and content of the user interface is changed by profile instantiator  4 , some or all of the following steps can be applied: switch the theme, switch the skin, display or hide pages, change contact lists, and/or perform further profile actions. 
     Further types of user interface parameters for adapting the user interface can include some or all of: selected content, navigation structure, business process filtering, current IM status, page layout, available portlets, page meta data for influencing portlet content, contents of personal document folder, bookmarks, favorites, user preferences, visible virtual team rooms. 
     Profile Manager  5  handles profile records stored in database  7 , and provides functionality to create, modify and/or query profile records. Further, it provides functions for automated creation and/or adaptation of profile records through automated learning. Such learning can be based on detected context data, which cannot be matched to any profile in satisfactory manner, or on data collected about successful matchings, for instance such context data and record profiles. 
     Additionally, other historical data provided by the portal installation can be used, e.g. website usage data or site navigation data. Pattern analysis and learning algorithms can be performed on those data sets to create and modify profile data. In particular, context parameters or user interface parameters can be influenced by such processes, or the weighting factors for the profile selection algorithm can be adopted. 
     In an embodiment, the method and portal server  1  are configured to collect context data only on the server and perform the remaining method steps based on these server-side context data when connected to a client not having extension modules  12  and/or  13 , such as a plain web client. 
     Embodiments can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In an embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, etc. 
     Furthermore, embodiments can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. 
     The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk—read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk—read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD. 
     A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution. 
     Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. 
     Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters. 
     To avoid unnecessary repetitions, explanations given for one of the various embodiments are intended to refer to the other embodiments as well, where applicable. In and between all embodiments, identical reference signs refer to elements of the same kind. Moreover, reference signs in the claims shall not be construed as limiting the scope. The use of “comprising” in this application does not mean to exclude other elements or steps and the use of “a” or “an” does not exclude a plurality. A single unit or element may fulfil the functions of a plurality of means recited in the claims. 
     REFERENCE NUMERALS 
     
         
           1  Portal server 
           2  Context detector 
           3  Profile selector 
           4  Profile instantiator 
           5  Profile manager 
           6  User interface system 
           7  Profile database 
           8  User interface element 
           10  Client 
           11  Browser 
           12 ,  13  Extension module 
           14 - 14 ″ Application program 
           15  Sensor application 
           20  Request processor 
           21  Rendering engine 
           22  Portal application 
           23  Portal base service 
           24 -≧″ Instantiation handler 
           100  Network 
           200  Detect context on server 
           202  Detect context on client 
           204  Communicate context 
           210  Select profile 
           212  Provide manual selection 
           220  Configure interface 
           300  Select context data element 
           310  Evaluate difference value 
           320  Weight difference value 
           330  Add to correspondence value 
           340  Done? 
           350  Store correspondence value,
       proceed with next record   
     
       
    
     Plural instances may be provided for components, operations or structures described herein as a single instance. Finally, boundaries between various components, operations and data stores are somewhat arbitrary, and particular operations are illustrated in the context of specific illustrative configurations. Other allocations of functionality are envisioned and may fall within the scope of the invention(s). In general, structures and functionality presented as separate components in the exemplary configurations may be implemented as a combined structure or component. Similarly, structures and functionality presented as a single component may be implemented as separate components. These and other variations, modifications, additions, and improvements may fall within the scope of the invention(s).