Patent ID: 7385716

Claim:
An authoring tool that assists an author in building an automated troubleshooter for a product, the authoring tool comprising: a cause editor interface that allows an author to place, in a cause data structure, information pertaining to causes of malfunction of the product; an action editor interface that allows an author to place, in an action data structure, information pertaining to actions that can be taken to correct malfunction of the product; and a question editor interface that allows an author to place, in a question data structure, information pertaining to questions that can be asked a user of the product to help identify causes of malfunction of the product; wherein information within the cause data structure, the action data structure and the question data structure are all used by the automated troubleshooter to provide troubleshooting steps to a user of the automated troubleshooter, the troubleshooting steps being steps the user can use to troubleshoot the product.