Assigning slots to user interface elements

• US 10,346,858 B2
• Filed: 05/10/2017
• Issued: 07/09/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sutariya, Mehul G., Days, Adam Lloyd, Fakhari, Yashar D., Johnson, Adam Brent, McCanner, Margaret E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott T
• Assistant Examiner(s): Level, Barbara M
• Application Number:
  US15/591,877
• Publication Number:
  US 20170243237A1
• Time in Patent Office: 790 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for assigning user interface widgets to page slots associated with a page template. In response to a request to generate a content page, content placement requests are then received from user interface widgets. The page slots are associated with a placement value indicating a value of the page slot relative to other page slots in the page template. The highest ranked user interface widgets according to an effectiveness metric or placement score are scheduled for placement in the content page.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device; and

a content page generation application executable in the at least one computing device, the content page generation application, when executed, causing the at least one computing device to at least;

receive a request to generate a content page;

identify a page template corresponding to the requested content page, the page template comprising a plurality of page slots corresponding to a plurality of content locations in the content page, the page slots being ranked according to a placement value;

generate a ranking of a plurality of user interface widgets according to an effectiveness metric;

match the plurality of page slots with at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the ranking and the placement value;

determine, prior to transmission of the content page to a browser rendering the content page on behalf of a client device, whether any of the at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets returns an error in response to a request to generate markup language for placement in a page slot;

prior to requesting that the at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets returning an error generating any markup language, initiate a request to generate markup language for a next highest ranked user interface widget according to the ranking that is not among the subset of the plurality of user interface widgets; and

generate the content page with markup language generated by the subset of the plurality of user interface widgets and the next highest ranked user interface widget.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the page template corresponding to the requested content page is dynamically generated in response to receiving the request to generate the content page.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the effectiveness metric is associated with at least one of a profitability amount, a revenue amount, or a volume of sold items associated with a corresponding user interface widget in an electronic commerce system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the effectiveness metric is associated with an engagement metric associated with a corresponding user interface widget, the engagement metric expressing a measure of an amount of user interaction with the corresponding user interface widget relative to other user interface widgets.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the content page is further generated by requesting the at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets to generate markup language corresponding for placement within the content page.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the ranking of the plurality of user interface widgets is provided to the at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the ranking of the plurality of user interface widgets according to an effectiveness metric is further based at least in part upon scheduling data specifying scheduling constraints associated with at least one of the plurality of user interface widgets.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the scheduling data specifies a percentage of content pages in which a respective user interface widget should be placed.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the scheduling data specifies at least one of a page slot or a slot group in the page template in which a respective user interface widget should be placed.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the content page generation application requests the at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets to generate markup language in parallel.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the user interface widgets is configured to generate content based at least in part upon a user account.

12. A method comprising:

receiving, via at least one computing device, a request to generate a content page;

identifying, via the at least one computing device, a page template corresponding to the requested content page, the page template defining a plurality of page slots corresponding to at least one content locations in the content page, the page slots being ranked according to a placement value;

generating, via the at least one computing device, a ranking of a plurality of user interface widgets according to an effectiveness metric;

matching, via the at least one computing device, individual ones of the page slots with respective user interface widgets based at least in part upon the ranking and the placement value of the individual ones of the page slots;

determining, prior to transmission of the content page to a browser rendering the content page on behalf of a client device, via the at least one computing device, whether any of the respective user interface widgets corresponding to the individual ones of the page slots returns an error in response to a request to generate markup language for placement in a page slot;

prior to requesting that the respective user interface widget returning an error generate any markup language, initiating, via the at least one computing device, a request to generate markup language for a next highest ranked user interface widget according to the ranking that is not matched to a page slot; and

generating, via the at least one computing device, the content page with the respective user interface widgets corresponding to the individual ones of the page slots.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the effectiveness metric is associated with an engagement metric associated with a corresponding user interface widget, and the engagement metric is associated with an amount of user interaction with the corresponding user interface widget by a population of users relative to other user interface widgets.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein generating the content page further comprises requesting, via the at least one computing device, the respective interface widgets to generate markup language.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein requesting the respective user interface widgets to generate markup language further comprises providing the ranking of the individual ones of the page slots to the respective user interface widgets, wherein the respective user interface widgets generate markup language based upon a respective ranking of other ones of the user interface widgets.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein requesting, via the at least one computing device, the respective user interface widgets to generate markup language is performed in parallel.