Patent ID: 6873990

Claim:
A user context clustering system for a customer self service system that performs resource search and selection, said system comprising: a context attribute database comprising types of user contexts and one or more context attributes associated with each user context for processing by said system; a context attribute function database comprising funtions for computing values for each context attribute; a database of user interaction records including user interaction data; and, a processing mechanism for receiving said user interaction data including traces of previous user interactions with the system and including context information that is a function of said user including that user's interaction state, and receiving a distance metric for associating closeness of said user interaction data and, for performing unsupervised learning by clustering related aspects of multiple user interactions with said system from said user interaction data according to said distance metric to determine new user contexts and associated attributes for use in subsequent resource searches initiated by users in said system, wherein improved query definition and resource lookup results from said new determined user contrxt attributes due to user validation based on a combination of said unsupervised learning and supervised learning.