US 7444348 B2
A system for enhancing searching of a network has an architecture that supports a search tool component capable of soliciting a search query from a user and of invoking an instance of an Internet browser in which to display search results. A further embodiment of the invention providing at least one search option suggesting changing at least one search parameter and at least one option allowing the user to indicate that their search was successful.
1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components comprising:
a search tool component soliciting a search query from a user, selecting a search area where a search based on the search query is to be performed, invoking an instance of a network browser component after receiving the search query in order to transmit the search query, wherein the instance of the network browser component was not open before receiving the search query, generating a uniform resource locator based on the search area and the search query, and passing the uniform resource locator to the network browser component; and
a network browser component invoked by the search tool component, receiving a uniform resource locator from the search tool component, using the uniform resource locator to pass the search query to the search area, receiving search results from the search area, and displaying the search results in a browser window that is independent of the search tool component.
2. The computer-readable medium of
3. The computer-readable medium of
4. The computer-readable medium of
5. The computer-readable medium of
6. The computer-readable medium of
7. A method comprising:
in a search tool component soliciting a search query from a user, selecting a search area where a search based on the search query is to be performed, invoking an instance of a network browser component after receiving the search query in order to transmit the search query, wherein the instance of the network browser component was not open before receiving the search query, generating a uniform resource locator based on the search area and the search query, and passing the uniform resource locator to the network browser component; and
in a network browser component invoked by the search tool component, receiving a uniform resource locator from the search tool component, using the uniform resource locator to pass the search query to the search area, receiving search results from the search area, and displaying the search results in a browser window that is independent of the search tool component.
8. The method of
9. The method of
10. The method of
11. The method of
12. The method of
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09/221,663 filed on Dec. 23, 1998 entitled SYSTEM FOR ENHANCING A QUERY INTERFACE.
The present application is related to three applications filed on Dec. 23, 1998 that are respectively entitled and have serial numbers of SYSTEM FOR IMPROVING SEARCH TEXT, application Ser. No. 09/221,659; SYSTEM FOR IMPROVING SEARCH AREA SELECTION, application Ser. No. 09/219,271; and COMPUTERIZED SEARCHING TOOL WITH SPELL CHECKING, application Ser. No. 09/221,028.
The present invention relates to searching a network for information. In particular, the present invention relates to search tools used in computer searching.
Computer networks connect large numbers of computers together so they may share data and applications. Examples include Intranets that connect computers within a corporation and the Internet, which connects computers throughout the world.
A single computer can be connected to both an Intranet and the Internet. In such a configuration, the computer can use data and applications found on any of its own storage media such as its hard disc drive, its optical drive, or its tape drive. It can also use data and applications located on another computer in the Intranet or Internet. Given the large number of locations from which a computer can extract data and the increasing amount of storage capacity at each of these locations, users have found it increasingly difficult to isolate the information they desire.
In recent years, users have begun to use search engines to help them search the Internet. Typically, search engines accept a search query from the user and then look for the search query's terms in an indexed list of terms. The indexed list is generated by parsing text found on individual Internet pages and indexing the text by the page's Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
Since it is impossible to index every page on the Internet, each search engine selects a set of pages to index. Since each search engine is created by a different group of people, different search engines index different sets of pages. In fact, some search engines have become extremely specialized and only index pages related to a specific category of information such as sports or celebrities.
In addition, different search engines search through their index in different ways and are optimized using different query structures. Some search engines are optimized to accept free-text queries. Others are optimized to accept queries with logical operators such as “AND” and “OR”.
The differences between various search engines are largely unknown by average computer users. Therefore, they are not able to determine which search engine would best suit their searching goals. In addition, many of the specialized search engines that index specific categories of pages are unknown to average computer users. Therefore, users are not fully utilizing the variety of search engines available on the Internet.
Currently, there are no tools available to help computer users identify which search engines they should be using to optimize their search. There are also no tools that help searchers identify ambiguities in their search that may cause poor search engine performance.
In addition, there are no search tools that provide feedback to help searchers improve their search. If a searcher does not obtain the result they want, current search engines typically will not offer suggestions for improving the search.
In addition, most search engines provide a very technical display to the user that does not invite the user to interact with the search engines. For novice users, this increases their hesitancy to explore search engines. Therefore, a tool is needed that increases user interaction in the searching process and that makes the searching process more entertaining.
The present invention is a web companion. Under embodiments of the present invention a search tool balloon is displayed to provide search suggestions to the user. When the user submits a search to the search balloon, the invention invokes a network browser that displays the results of the search. Suggestions for improving the search are then provided in the balloon. In some embodiments, a selectable entry is added to the suggestions to allow the user to indicate that their search was successful.
With reference to
Although the exemplary environment described herein employs the hard disk, the removable magnetic disk 29 and the removable optical disk 31, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memory (ROM), and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operating environment.
A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk 29, optical disk 31, ROM 24 or RAM 25, including an operating system 35, one or more application programs 36, other program modules 37, and program data 38. A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 20 through local input devices such as a keyboard 40, pointing device 42 and a microphone 43. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus 23, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a sound card, a parallel port, a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 23 via an interface, such as a video adapter 48. In addition to the monitor 47, personal computers may typically include other peripheral output devices, such as a speaker 45 and printers (not shown).
The personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logic connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 49. The remote computer 49 may be another personal computer, a hand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the personal computer 20, although only a memory storage device 50 has been illustrated in
When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 is connected to the local area network 51 through a network interface or adapter 53. When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network 52, such as the Internet. The modem 54, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46. In a network environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 20, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage devices. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. For example, a wireless communication link may be established between one or more portions of the network.
The present invention provides a web companion that acts as an interactive searching aid for searching a computer environment, especially an environment that includes an Intranet or the Internet. The web companion is interactive in the sense that it provides the user with searching options based on the search query provided by the user and previous searching options the user has selected. Some of the options provided by the web companion are possible search goals that the user may have, such as a person's e-mail address, or photographs of a celebrity. If the user selects one of the goals, the web companion can automatically select an appropriate search area and/or adjust the user's search query to improve the likelihood that the user will find what they are looking for.
The web companion may be invoked in a number of different ways. In a Windows 95®, Windows 98® or Windows NT® based operating system provided by Microsoft Corporation, the web companion can be invoked by “double-clicking” on an icon appearing in the environment. In addition, the web companion can be invoked from within a browser such as Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) from Microsoft Corporation. In particular, the web companion can be registered with IE4 so that IE4 opens the web companion in the background when IE4 is opened. In such a configuration, the web companion does not display an interface while it is operating in the background. When the user enters a search in IE4, either through a search engine on the Internet or through the browser's search screen, the search is provided to the web companion. The web companion then processes the search through steps described below and determines possible suggestions that would aid the user. In some embodiments, the web companion then generates an interface to display the suggestions to the user as described below. In other embodiments, the web companion only displays an interface if the suggestions have a high probability of being helpful to the user. When the web companion is invoked through IE4 in this manner, the web companion display disappears if the user does not adopt a suggestion made by the web companion. The web companion may also be stored on a remote server and invoked through a network connection to the remote server.
The instructions in DEFAULT.HTM 204 include requests for instances of three ACTIVE-X controls: SEARCH-AGENT 206, QUERYENG 208, and TRUEVOICE 210. Each ACTIVE-X control includes methods that can be invoked by DEFAULT.HTM 204 and each ACTIVE-X control is able to fire events that are trapped by DEFAULT.HTM 204.
QUERYENG 208 cooperates with DEFAULT.HTM 204 and WEB COMPANION 200 to perform most of the functions of the present invention. SEARCH-AGENT 206 generates, positions and animates a graphical character, shown as character 262 in
TRUEVOICE 210 produces sounds based on method calls made by DEFAULT.HTM 204. Typically, these sounds are timed to coincide with the animation of the character produced by SEARCH-AGENT 206.
WEB COMPANION 200 generates a balloon, such as balloon 260 of
The Active Server Pages called by DEFAULT.HTM include HTML instructions. Although only three ASP files 212, 214 and 216 are shown in
If this is not the first invocation of WEB COMPANION 200, or after the display of the initial screen, the process continues at step 228 where a first selection display is produced by WEB COMPANION 200, DEFAULT.HTM 204 AND SEARCH-AGENT 206. An example of this display is shown in
If the user chooses to go to a previous site, the computer-executable instructions follow step 230 to step 232, where they locate recently visited sites stored for this user. In one embodiment, the recently visited sites are stored in Registry 222 of
At step 236, DEFAULT.HTM 204 causes IE4 control 202 to display a selectable list of recently visited sites and frequently visited sites. An example of such a selectable list is shown in
The selectable list of balloon 264 includes selectable entries for five recently visited sites 268, 270, 272, 274, and 276, and selectable entries for five frequently visited sites 278, 280, 282, 284, and 286. The selectable list also includes an option to search the Internet. In many embodiments, the names of the sites that appear in balloon 264 are the common names for the sites. In other words, the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for the sites normally do not appear in balloon 264, since most users find it difficult to associate a site's URL with its contents. However, to accommodate users that want to see a site's URL, the present invention provides a pop-up window that appears if the user pauses the display caret over a site's name. An example of this is shown in
While the selectable list of balloon 264 is displayed, DEFAULT.HTM 204 waits for the user to select one of the listed sites in a step 237. If the user selects a site, the computer-executable instructions follow step 238 to step 240.
In step 240, DEFAULT.HTM 204 calls a method in QUERYENG 208 to pass a message to WEB COMPANION 200, asking WEB COMPANION 200 to locate or instantiate an Internet browser such as IEXPLORE from Microsoft Corporation. If one or more Internet browsers are open, WEB COMPANION 200 selects the top browser. If there are no open browsers, WEB COMPANION 200 opens a browser. In
IEXPLORE 218 uses the site's URL to locate the site's server over a network connection, such as the Internet, and to make a request from the server for the site's content. The located server, shown as server 219 in
If at steps 228 or 237 of
At step 320 of
In addition to defining the search interface shown in
The search interface found in balloon 308 of
By recording the user's past searches and by allowing the user to review their past searches, the present invention improves searching efficiency by reducing the likelihood that the user will unknowingly reuse unsuccessful searches or waste time trying to remember past successful searches.
While the user is entering their search query, the query is spell checked by SPELLCHECK 221 at a step 322 of
Once the user has finished entering and modifying their query, they activate NEXT button 313 of
The NLP process of
The steps required to make the call to invoke the NLP component are shown in the flow diagram of
In step 486 of
In step 488, the NLP component 227 performs natural language parsing functions on the search query. NLP component 227 uses known logical and syntactic rules to identify respective parts of speech for each term in the search query. NLP component 227 also identifies words that modify other terms in the search query and how words modify each other. In addition, NLP component 227 reduces each term in the search query to its most basic form and creates inflected and plural forms from the most basic form. NLP component 227 is also able to identify the semantics of certain words and categorize them. For instance, NLP component 227 is capable of recognizing that the term “recent” is related to time. Other categories include city, state, country, continent, and proper name, etc
NLP component 227 can also group together multiple words that represent a single conceptual item. For instance, NLP is able to identify the constituent parts of a date as belonging to a single date construct. To identify these “multi-word entries”, NLP component 227 utilizes “factoids” and “captoids”. Factoids are rules that identify multi-word entries on the basis of known facts. For example, NLP component 227 identifies “New Jersey” as a single multi-word entry because of the fact that New Jersey is a state. Captoids are rules that identify multi-word entries on the basis of the capitalization of terms in the query. For instance, if “Jack's Seafood Restaurant” is found in a search query, NLP component 227 will identify it as a multi-word entry on the basis of its capitalization.
NLP component 227 returns a block of NLP data embedded in an HTML page that is routed back to IEXPLORE 224. This is shown in
After the call to the NLP component the process of
The NLP data for each term is normally of the form shown in
PLURAL 530 provides a plural form of the term if appropriate and INFLECTED FORMS 532 provides any inflected forms of the term, separated from each other by commas. NLP BITS 534 provides semantic markers that indicate semantic information about the term. Examples of such markers include: “+tme” for terms related to time, “+city” for terms identifying a city, “+nme” for a person's name, “+neg” for a term providing a negative meaning, “+vulgar” for vulgar terms, and “+food” for terms related to food. The list above is only provided as an example and those skilled in the art will recognize that other markers are possible.
Returning to the flow diagram of
At step 464 of
At step 326 of
In step 328 of
In first step 549 of
In the embodiment of
The operation of Topics Dictionary component 239 is shown through flow diagrams in
In an initial step 600 of
At step 602, WEB-PARSE 962 uses database server 972 to sequentially access the URL records stored in source database 961. For each URL, WEB-PARSE 962 invokes a browser 964, such as Internet Explorer 4 from Microsoft Corporation. Browser 964 uses the URL to retrieve the URL's page from a remote server 966 and to store the page locally.
Once the page has been retrieved, WEB-PARSE 962 calls scripting functions 963 that are associated with the URL in source database 961. These scripting functions isolate desired information in the URL's page using dynamic object models of the HTML tags on the page. These object models are created by HTML object modeler 965 in response to method calls made by scripting functions 963.
The isolation functions performed by scripting functions 963 strip irrelevant information from a URL's page. Thus, if a page contains a header, some opening text, and a list of celebrity addresses, and the topic associated with the page is celebrity addresses, the scripting functions can isolate the celebrity addresses from the header and the opening text. This is accomplished using the HTML object models, which allow the scripting functions to manipulate the URL's page based on HTML tags in the page. For example, the scripting functions can retrieve all of the text lines associated with <anchor>HTML tags by calling an HTML object method that performs that function.
In most embodiments, the scripting functions treat the text string associated with an individual HTML tag as an individual entry. Thus, if a multi-word text string is associated with an HTML tag, the entire text string is considered one phrase. By storing text strings found on network pages as single units, the present invention improves the precision of the topics it returns. Thus, if “John Glen's Address” appears on a celebrity page and “John's Apple Store” appears on a shopping page, a search query for “John Glen's Address” will only return a hit for the celebrity page and not for the shopping page, even though both pages contain the word “John”. If the terms on the pages were stored individually, both pages would produce a hit resulting in an erroneous identification of the topic of the search.
For each entry isolated by scripting functions 963, WEB-PARSE 962 places the entry and its associated topics in index database 967 and/or HTML files 975. The entries that are placed in index database 967 are placed there by making database calls to database server 972 and can be accessed later by making additional calls to database server 972. The entries that are placed in HTML files 975 are placed there by Topics Dictionary 239 so that they may be indexed by an Index server 973 to form Index server files 974. Whether an entry and its associated topics are added to the index database or the Index server files is controlled by a property in URL list 960. The topics for an entry may be any one of or all of the topics listed for this URL page in source database 961.
At step 603, WEB-PARSE 962 passes individual terms found in a term list 968 to Topics Dictionary component 239. Term list 968 includes a list of terms and phrases organized by topics and allows terms to be associated with certain topics in Index database 967 or Index server files 974 even though the terms do not appear in a URL's page. For each term or phrase in term list 968, database server 972 creates an additional entry in Index database 967 and/or Topics Dictionary 239 creates an additional entry in HTML text file 975 to be indexed by Index server 973.
In one embodiment of the invention, all forms of the individual terms (e.g. plural, singular, past tense etc.) either from a URL page or the term list are derived before being stored. This derivation creates all of the linguistic forms of each individual term. For example, if the term “televisions” is found in the URL page, it is stemmed to provide both “television” and “televisions”.
Once the isolated entries for each of the URL pages listed in source database 961 have been entered in Index database 967 and/or Index server files 974, the process of
Each sub-query found above is sequentially processed through the remaining steps of
If N is again greater than one at step 607, Topic Dictionary 239 searches for all phrases of length N found in the sub-query. Thus, if the initial query was (A B C D), where A, B, C, and D are each terms, the first reduction in size produces two search units (A B C) and (B C D) that are searched for individually in Index database 967. If either of these smaller units is found Index database 967 and/or Index server files 974 at step 610, the associated topics 971 are returned at step 612 and the terms corresponding to the matching phrases are removed from the sub-query. If both of these smaller units are found in Index database 967 and/or Index server files 974 at step 610, the associated topics 971 for both units are returned at step 612 and all of the terms of the sub-query are removed.
If neither of these smaller units is found in Index database 967 at step 610, the length variable N is again reduced by one at step 611. If N is still greater than one at step 607, Topics Dictionary 609 searches for all phrases of length N found in the search query. Using the example above, this produces three units (A B) (B C) and (C D), which are each searched for in Index database 967.
Steps 607, 609, 610 and 611 are repeated until a query unit is found in Index database 967 or Index server files 974, or until N equals one.
When N equals one at step 607, or after topics have been returned at step 612, the process continues at step 608 where N is reset to equal the number of terms remaining in the sub-query. This number will be less than the number of terms originally in the sub-query if terms were removed in step 612 after a match was found. At step 608, only those terms that did not have a match are left in the sub-query.
At step 613, N is compared to one and if it is greater than one, Topics Dictionary 239 places a Boolean “AND” between each term of the sub-query at step 614. Continuing the example above, this produces a logical search string (A AND B AND C AND D). Topics Dictionary 239 then searches for strings that have each of the terms of the logical search string. Any string that has all of the search string's terms, regardless of the order of the terms in the string, will be considered a match at step 615. If there are no strings that match the logical search string at step 615, N is reduced by one at step 616 before being compared to “1” at step 613.
If N is greater than one at step 613, step 614 is repeated using only N terms in each combination. Using the example above with N reduced to “3”, Topic Dictionary 239 searches based on four logical search strings (A AND B AND C), (A AND B AND D), (A AND C AND D), and (B AND C AND D). If none of these logical search strings result in a match at step 615, then steps 616, 613, 614, and 615 are repeated until there is a match or until N equals one. If there is a match at step 615, Topics Dictionary 239 returns the matches to IEXPLORE 224 in a topic list embedded in an HTML page at step 617. Topics Dictionary 239 also removes the terms of the matching logical search string from the sub-query.
If N is equal to one at step 613, or after topics are returned at step 617, the process continues at step 618, where Topics Dictionary 239 searches for each remaining term of the sub-query on an individual basis. If there is at least one match at step 619, Topics Dictionary 239 determines if there are fewer matches than a maximum number at step 620. In the embodiment of
In one embodiment, the topic lists returned at steps 612, 617 and 621 include lists of the matching topics, the number of matches for each topic, and weighting bits that indicate if the keywords match an entire string stored in Index database 967 or Index Server Files 974. Thus, if the user's query is “Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan”, and “Saving Private Ryan” is stored under the MOVIE topic, a weighting bit would be returned with the topic MOVIE in the topic list.
After the topic list is returned at step 622 or if there are no matches at step 619 or if there are more than the maximum number of matches at step 620, Topics Dictionary 239 checks to see if there are more sub-queries to process at step 622. If there are more sub-queries, the process returns to step 606. If there are no more sub-queries, the process returns to step 600 of
The progressive reduction in size of the search units described above improves the precision of the topics returned by the present invention. Specifically, since a match on a multi-word part of the query is likely to be more relevant to the query than a match on a single word, the invention is more likely to return relevant topics than if searching was simply performed on the individual terms of the query.
To facilitate a dynamic database that includes the latest news events and latest additions to the network, the present invention periodically returns to step 602 from step 604 to retrieve updated versions of the pages on the network. The refreshed pages are then stripped to build an updated index as discussed above.
Through the processes described above in connection with Topics Dictionary 239, the present invention is able to automatically generate a list of indexed terms organized under topics. This list includes terms that have recently entered public discourse such as the names of people who were otherwise unknown to the general public one month earlier. This aspect of the present invention allows possible search goals to be identified based on search terms that are new to the public vocabulary. It also allows possible search goals to be identified based on new events. If there's a hurricane named Mitch in Florida and someone types in “hurricane Mitch”, the present invention can determine that the searcher might be interested in the recent news on the Florida hurricane.
At step 558 of
Once topics have been identified for the NLP semantic bits returned by the NLP parse, the process of
When the topics are combined, the combined topic list is sorted at step 562 of
At step 330 of
At step 332, QUERYENG 208 selects a search area or repository where the search is to be performed. When operating on the searcher's initial search query the search area is a generic search engine. In particular, the search area is the best vector-space search engine available. A vector-space search engine is one that ranks documents on the number of times a term in the search query appears in the document, discounting those terms that are common to a large number of documents and giving priority to documents that have the term in the title or the first paragraph of the document. Each vector-space search engine has its own algorithm for weighting these different factors. In most embodiments, the initial search engine selected at step 332 is stored in Registry 222 of
After the search area is selected in step 332, QUERYENG 208 determines if the search should be converted into a logical search query, also known as a logical function query, at step 334. Logical searches have logical operators between search terms that indicate the relationship between the terms. Examples of logical operators include “AND” to indicate that two terms should appear together in a document, “OR” to indicate that one of the terms or both of the terms should appear in the document, “NOT” to indicate that a term should not appear in the document, and quotes to indicate that the exact phrase found between the quotes should appear in the document.
For the initial query, a logical search is not constructed since the query is being submitted to a vector-space search engine and such search engines work better if they do not have to deal with logical operators. Later in the process, after possible search goals have been identified, the determination of whether to construct a logical search query is based largely on the user's search goal. For search goals that involve specific items, the present invention first attempts to locate a search area dedicated to the item. For example, if the user is looking for a celebrity's address, the present invention will look for a search area dedicated to celebrity addresses. If such a search area cannot be found, the present invention will convert the search query into a logical search query and will submit the logical search query to a search engine that supports such queries.
If a search area exists that is targeted at the user's goal, and the search area works better when it receives logical queries, the present invention will convert the query into a logical query. If the search area works better when it receives free text search queries, the query is not converted into a logical search query.
To determine if a particular search area is better suited to receiving logical search queries or free text search queries, QUERYENG 208 accesses a table that indicates the preferred search query form for a number of search areas. In most embodiments, this table is stored in default.htm.
Constructing a logical query is shown as step 336 of
For simplicity in the discussion below, the invention is described using the Boolean tags: “AND”, “OR”, “NOT”, “NEAR”, and “( )”. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the present invention actually inserts the search area's character or string in the logical searches constructed below. Thus, if the term “AND” is used in the discussion below and the selected search area represents “AND” using the “+” character, a “+” will actually be inserted in the logical search instead of the “AND”.
In step 702 of
The first operation in box 704 is actually a set of operations that are repeated for each CRD term in the CRD set. The operations performed for each CRD term are found in box 706 and the fact that these operations are repeated is represented in box 708.
The first operation in box 706 is step 710 where the current CRD term is inserted into the Boolean query along with any inflected forms of the CRD term returned by NLP. The CRD term and its inflected forms are separated from each other by “OR”, and the complete string is encased in parentheses to produce: (CRD-TERM OR INFLECTED-FORM-#1 OR INFLECTED-FORM-#2 . . . OR INFLECTED-FORM-#N), which is referred to as a base string.
At step 712, each of the terms in the search query that modify the current CRD term are identified by QUERYENG 208 based on the NLP data. For each modifying term, the operations in block 714 are repeated. Specifically, step 716 of block 714 is repeated where the modifying term is inserted in the Boolean query along with any allowed inflected forms of the modifying term. The modifying term and its allowed inflected forms are separated from each other by logical OR's and the entire string is encased in parentheses to produce:(MODIFYING-TERM OR INFLECTED-FORM-#1 OR INFLECTED-FORM-#2 . . . OR INFLECTED-FORM-#N), which is referred to as a modifying string.
Note that the present invention is able to discriminate between terms that should have their inflected forms included in the Boolean search and terms that should not have their inflected forms included in the Boolean search. Specifically, QUERYENG 208 filters inflected forms of modifying terms that are grammatically incorrect. Thus, a modifying term such as black, as in the phrase “black bird”, would not have its inflected form “blacks” included in the Boolean query. In fact, under the present invention, most modifying terms will not have an inflected form included in the Boolean query. In addition, proper nouns, such as Seattle, are not inflected by the present invention. This avoids adding non-existent terms, such as Seattles, to the Boolean query.
In step 718, either a “NEAR” or an “AND” is placed between each of the modifying strings as well as between the base string and its neighboring modifying strings. The decision between using “NEAR” and “AND” is made on the basis of the phrase strength currently employed by the web companion and on whether the chosen search service supports NEAR. The phrase strength is initially set at a strong default setting that would cause “NEAR” to be inserted between the modifying strings. However, the user may change this phrase strength during the searching process so that “AND” is used instead of “NEAR” by accepting a suggestion from the Web Companion to make this change.
In step 720, the modifying strings, the base string and their connecting logical operators are encased in parentheses to produce in the default case: (Base-String AND MODIFYING-STRING-#1 . . . AND MODIFYING-STRING-#N), which is identified as a CRD term string.
In step 722, Boolean operators are placed between each of the CRD term strings. The Boolean operators are selected on the basis of the coordinating relationship of the current CRD set. If the coordinating relationship is based on “or”, an “OR” Boolean operator separates each CRD term string. If the coordinating relationship is based on “and”, an “AND” Boolean operator separates each CRD term string. Note that after the initial query has been searched, the query may be refined by the present invention by asking the user to clarify the meaning of “and” in the search query. This process is discussed below in connection with
In step 724, the CRD term strings and their corresponding Boolean operators are encased in parentheses to produce: (CRD-term-string-#1 AND/OR CRD-term-string-#2 . . . AND/OR CRD-term-string-#N), which is referred to as a CRD set string.
In step 726, each CRD set string is separated from all other CRD set strings in the Boolean query by inserting the Boolean operator “AND” between each CRD set string.
At step 728, the remaining stand-alone terms in the search query are added to the Boolean query. This is accomplished by repeating the steps found in box 730 for each stand-alone term. The first step in box 730 is step 732, which inserts the stand-alone term after the last CRD set string. In addition, step 732 inserts any inflected forms of the stand-alone term. A Boolean “OR” is inserted between the stand-alone term and each inflected form. In step 734, the stand alone term, its inflected forms, and the Boolean “OR” operators are encased in parentheses to produce: (STAND-ALONE-TERM OR Inflected-form-#1 . . . OR Inflected-form-#N).
At step 736, the current stand-alone term's respective NLP bits are examined to determine if the term is associated with a +NEG bit. This bit indicates that in the original search query the current term was modified by another term in such a way that it appears the user wants to exclude documents that include the current term. If the current term is not associated with a +NEG bit, a Boolean “AND” is inserted before the open parentheses of the stand-alone string at step 740. If the current term is associated with a +NEG bit, a Boolean “NOT” is inserted before the open parentheses of the stand-alone string at step 738. As with CRD relationships, the query may be refined by asking the user to clarify what they intended a negative modifier to signify. This process is discussed further below in connection with
Once all of the stand-alone terms have been added, the process of constructing the Boolean search query is complete.
Note that in the discussion above, QUERYENG 208 treats multi-word entries returned by the natural language parse as a single term that is placed in quotes or is otherwise grouped as a Boolean phrase. Thus, the multi-word entry “Microsoft Corporation” would be considered a single term in the discussion above and would appear within phrase markers in the constructed Boolean query.
After the Boolean search has been constructed at step 336 of
After the query is modified in step 340, or if the query is not to be modified in step 338, the search query, either logical or free text, is submitted to the selected search area at step 342. The process of submitting the search to a search area located on the Internet is shown in detail in the flow diagram of
In step 760 of
When the search results are returned to IEXPLORE 218, they are displayed by IEXPLORE 218 in an independent browser window. This step is represented in
After the search has been submitted at step 342, but before the results have been returned, QUERYENG 208 continues to operate at step 344, where it uses the possible topics determined in step 328, along with user profile clues, search scope clues and past web companion interactions to determine suggestions to be displayed in the next web companion screen produced by WEB COMPANION 200, QUERYENG 208, and DEFAULT.HTM 204. Thus, each of the items used to identify possible topics as well as user profile clues, search scope clues and past web companion interactions are all features of a clue stream for identifying search suggestions.
The user profile clues include such things as the user's age, their search history, their gender, things they have deemed as favorites, things in their browsing cache and their expertise level. The user profile may be constructed by asking the user for information or by tracking the user's interests based on the searches the user enters or the types of pages the user views.
The search scope clues provide an indication of what level of information the user is seeking. In other words, is the user looking for specific information or just a general overview? In one embodiment, the number of words in the user's initial search text provides a scope clue. Specifically, if the search text includes two or fewer words, the search is considered to have a broad scope. Other criteria for determining scope include broadly worded questions having phrases such as “tell me all about . . . ” or “give me information about . . . ” that indicate a broad scope. Or narrowly worded questions such as “who was ______” or “when did ______”, which indicate a narrow scope. In addition, the user's past searches may be used to determine scope since a searcher is more likely to want detailed information about a subject if they have searched it before.
The past web companion interactions are used to avoid presenting the user with the same suggestions more than once and to provide a logical progression in the types of suggestions provided to the user.
The user profile clues, search scope clues and past web companion interactions each provide interaction characteristics that indicate how the user wants to interact with the web companion. For example, based on the user profile, the web companion can determine whether the user is a child and thus whether the user expects the web companion to interact on a child's level. From the scope clues, the web companion can determine if the user is using the web companion for browsing or to find specific information. From the past web companion interactions, the web companion can identify the types of suggestions that the user is most likely to be interested in seeing next.
In most embodiments, the suggestions that are likely to be most helpful to the user are provided first, with less helpful suggestions provided in later screens. In accordance with this philosophy, some embodiments of the present invention try to provide suggestions based on a users possible search goals first.
To identify possible search goals, the present invention uses a support vector machine (SVM) 209 of
The training and use of SVM 209 is shown in the flow diagram of
The corpus of queries is then submitted to QUERYENG 208 at step 990. QUERYENG 208 generates a list of features for each query including NLP semantic bits, a list of topics, etc. Advanced embodiments include user profile features associated with the user who generated the training query. For each query, this list of features and the associated potential tasks for that query are then submitted to SVM 209 at step 991.
SVM 209 generates the goal vector space in step 992 by converting each set of features into a vector in the goal vector space. The resulting goal vector space is then divided by a set of goal surfaces based on the goals identified for each training vector. Techniques for generating these goal surfaces are discussed in greater detail in a pending patent application entitled METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR BUILDING A SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER, filed on Apr. 6, 1998, and having Ser. No. 09/055,477, which is hereby incorporated by reference. In most embodiments, the surfaces are represented by equations that define hyper-planes, which extend through the goal space.
After SVM 209 has been trained, it is ready to be used to identify possible goals of a new search query. The steps involved in using SVM 209 are shown within box 993 of
In step 994, the new search query is submitted to QUERYENG 208, which identifies a set of features using the techniques described above. The features are submitted to SVM 209 at step 995 and SVM 209 converts the features into the query's goal vector.
At step 996, SVM 209 determines where the query's goal vector resides in the goal space relative to the goal surfaces. In particular, for each goal surface, SVM 209 determines if the query's goal vector is on the surface's “positive” side indicating that the user's actual search goal is the search goal associated with the surface, or the surface's “negative” side indicating that the user's search goal is not the search goal associated with the surface.
In addition, SVM 209 determines the distance between the query's goal vector and each of the goal surfaces in the goal space. The distance measurement can weight all features equally or can give additional weight to certain features, such as topics
Based on the relative distances between the query's goal vector and each of the goal surfaces, SVM 209 assigns probabilities to each goal. Thus, if the query's goal vector is located next to a number of goal surfaces, there is a low probability that any one goal is the user's actual goal. If the query's goal vector is far from a particular goal surface and is on the positive side of the goal surface, there is a high probability that the associated goal is the user's actual goal. In step 997, SVM 209 returns each of the calculated probabilities to QUERYENG 208 for further processing as described below.
In some embodiments, SVM 209 can be trained on a continuing basis using queries entered by the user. This training requires that the user select a goal that is presented to them as shown in step 998. Based on this selected goal, and the features associated with the user's query, SVM 209 adds an additional corpus goal vector to the vector space at step 999. Alternatively, SVM 209 can modify an existing corpus goal vector so that it moves closer to the query's goal vector.
The search goal probabilities returned by SVM 209 may also be generated using a simple rules-based engine comprised of a series of complex case statements that test combinations of search clues. The search goal probabilities may also be determined using a Bayes Net.
QUERYENG 208 uses the returned search goal probabilities to select a set of search suggestions. Thus, if there is a high probability that the user is looking for used car prices, QUERYENG 208 will suggest searching a site listing used car prices. If the probability of a search goal is too low, QUERYENG 208 does not make a suggestion based on that goal.
In addition to or instead of providing suggestions based on the possible search goals, embodiments of the invention can also provide scope-based suggestions, which are based almost entirely on scope clues. Examples of scope-based suggestions are shown in
Once QUERYENG 208 has determined the suggestions it will display, the process continues at step 346 where the character's behavior changes or is modified based on the suggestions being displayed. For example, if suggestions relating to travel are displayed, the character can be modified so that it appears in travel clothes. Examples of such modifications to the character are described below in connection with the examples of screens displayed by the present invention.
At step 348, the next web companion screen is displayed, which contains text and control buttons that appear within a balloon produced by WEB COMPANION 200. The text and control buttons are produced by QUERYENG 208 and IE4 control 202, respectively. The screen also includes an animated character produced by Search Agent 206 of
Balloon 810 also includes a suggestion 812 that allows the user to indicate that they have found what they were looking for. If the user indicates that their search was successful by selecting suggestion 812, QUERYENG 208 makes a record of the user's search query and the final URL that produced the results the searcher wanted. In one embodiment, this record is kept in registry 222, but in other embodiments may be kept in any suitable memory location. QUERYENG 208 accesses this record each time a new search query is entered by the user so that it can determine if the user has made this search before. If it finds a record of a successful result for this search, QUERYENG 208 will suggest to the user that they use this past result. In other embodiments, this is implemented in SVM 209 by adding the URL as a corpus goal with the features associated with the search query forming the corpus goal vector. In further embodiments of the invention, QUERYENG 208 keeps track of the number of times the user selects this past result. If the number of times is greater than some chosen threshold, QUERYENG 208 automatically displays the result without making the suggestion to the user.
Depending on what the user selects from the displayed screen, the process of
If the user selects the exit option in any of the screens, WEB COMPANION 200 closes all of the modules that it has invoked except IEXPLORE and closes itself. This option is indicated in
If the user selects any other suggestion such as a search goal, a context based suggestion, a scope based suggestion, a suggestion to use a different search service, or a suggestion to fine-tune the search query, the process continues at step 358 where the user's selection is recorded for later use in step 344 to determine future screens to be displayed. The selections that lead to step 358 are shown representatively as GOALS box 360, CONTEXT BASED box 362, SCOPE BASED box 364, DIFFERENT SEARCH SERVICE box 366, and FINE-TUNE box 368. These boxes are shown only to illustrate some of the possible suggestions that may be provided to the user. Other suggestions are possible within the scope of the invention.
After the user's selection has been recorded in step 358, QUERYENG 208 determines at step 370 if the user's selection requires additional screens to be displayed before a new search can be submitted or before the present search can be submitted to a new search area. If additional screens need to be displayed, QUERYENG 208 displays those screens at step 372.
One suggestion that can lead to additional screens is suggestion 888 of
If the user chooses to fine tune their search and there are no ambiguities in the search query, QUERYENG 208 generates display 930 shown in
After QUERYENG 208 has collected the additional information it needs to construct and submit a new search query, or if QUERYENG 208 did not need additional information, the process returns to step 332 where a search area is selected. The search area selected on return to step 332 is chosen in large part on the basis of the suggestion selected by the user. For example, each search goal suggested to the user is usually associated with a specific search area. Thus, if the user has selected a suggested search goal, QUERYENG 208 is able to directly identify a search area associated with that search goal.
The associated search area is often focused on providing information related to the search goal. For instance, suggestion 822 of
Search areas are also associated with context-based suggestions (also known as media type suggestions) and scope-based suggestions. Thus, if the user selects context-based suggestion 868 of
In addition, if the user has adopted a suggestion to change their search service, QUERYENG 208 will select the search area based on the new search service chosen by the user.
Under the present invention, the user does not have to be familiar with the search area or the information it provides in order to utilize it. The user only needs to select a suggestion that they believe will advance their search. For example, if a user selects a suggestion to find a user's email address, they do not need to know about the email search area the present invention will search. In addition, since many of the suggestions are associated with relatively obscure search areas, the present invention allows users to utilize a broader range of search areas than they would otherwise use.
After the search area has been selected, QUERYENG 208 determines if a logical query should be constructed based on the selected search area and the present form of the search query. If the search query is already in logical form or if the search area works better with free text searches, a logical query would not be constructed.
After the logical search is constructed at step 336 or if at step 334 it is determined that a logical search query will not be constructed, QUERYENG 208 determines if the query should be modified. The modification of the query is based largely on the suggestion selected by the user. For example if the user has selected scope-based suggestion 884 of
The search query is also modified if the user selects certain context-based suggestions, such as suggestion 872 of
Certain search goal suggestions also lead to modification of the search query. For example, if the search goal is to find information on antique cars, QUERYENG 208 displays a suggestion to add words like automobile, auto, and classic to the query.
The modification of the query can be more sophisticated than just adding terms. For example, if the user has fine tuned a search query that included an ambiguity, QUERYENG 208 can modify the search query to remove the ambiguity. Thus, QUERYENG 208 can change the coordinating relationship between two words from “AND” to “OR” and can change a connecting term such as “NOT” to “AND” to reflect the user's true searching intentions. In addition, if the search query included an ambiguity as to time, such as including the term “recent”, QUERYENG 208 can replace “recent” with a specific set of dates. For certain search areas, ones that include date range fields, QUERYENG 208 removes the term “recent” from the search query and adds instructions in the query to fill out the date range field of the search area with the date range selected by the user. By removing the term “recent” from the search query, the present invention keeps the search area from looking for pages that include the term “recent” and instead focuses the search area on looking for pages that were produced on certain dates. This better reflects the user's searching intention.
The process shown in the flow diagram of
Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, workers skilled in the art will recognize that changes may be made in form and detail without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.