System and method for organizing, navigating and analyzing data

• US 20020122078A1
• Filed: 12/07/2001
• Published: 09/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Newsgrade Corp.
• Original Assignee: Newsgrade Corp.
• Inventors: Markowski, Michael J.
• Application Number:
  US10/011,050
• Publication Number:
  US 20020122078A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/853
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04802 3D-info-object: information is displayed on the internal or external surface of a three dimensional manipulable object, e.g. on the faces of a cube that can be rotated by the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

An information resource (IR) and method, and a graphical user interface for accessing data from the information resource. The IR is a collection of data (typically data relating to an entity, such as various securities and company performance data), stored at one or more Web sites or linked. A graphical user interface (GUI) presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of the data (e.g., company and/or security performance) and analytical tools for their evaluation. The levels of the hierarchy correspond to absolute or comparative degrees of performance. In an embodiment, a Web site is provided having a page which, when addressed by a client browser, provides or serves up a GUI; and in the GUI, parameters to be evaluated are arranged along a first vector and for each said parameter, a plurality of selectable analytical tools are arranged along a second vector.

Claims

1. A graphical user interface which presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of at least one of company performance and security performance, and analytical tools for their evaluation.

2. The graphical user interface of claim 1 wherein an analytical tool may be selected for presenting an analysis of data in one of a number of predetermined, defined contexts.

3. The graphical user interface of claim 2 wherein the defined context is historical.

4. The graphical user interface of claim 2 wherein the defined context analyzes a company or security relative to others in its industry sector.

5. The graphical user interface of claim 2 wherein the defined context analyzes a company or security relative to one or more appropriate indices.

6. The graphical user interface of any of claims 1-5 wherein the interface is provided at a web site.

7. A method of facilitating the presentation of data regarding the performance of a company and a security issued by the company, comprising:

providing a web site having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface;

in the graphical user interface, arranging along a first vector a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and for each said parameter, arranging along a second vector a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

9. The method of claim 7 or claim 8 further including receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a company name or security symbol just once while allowing a user to navigate among said analytical tools.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

11. The method of claim 10 or claim 15 wherein signaling includes clicking a mouse button.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

14. The method of claim 12 or claim 13 further including receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a company name or security symbol just once while allowing a user to select desired ones of said pointers to navigate among said analytical tools.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein each pointer corresponds to a tool and tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool itself or a pointer to the tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein each pointer corresponds to a tool and tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool itself or a pointer to the tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

12. A method of facilitating the presentation of data regarding the performance of a company and a security issued by the company, comprising:

providing a data source of quantitative information about the current and historical performance of the security;

providing a network of web sites, each having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface for invoking a predetermined tool for analyzing the security according to that tool; and

providing on the web sites pointers to selected other ones of the web sites such that the pointers have the effect of arranging the web sites along a first selection vector related to a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and further arranging the web sites such that for each said parameter pointers organize the sites along a second selection vector along which are arrayed a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

16. A graphical user interface which presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of past performance of an entity and analytical tools for studying the entity'"'"'s performance from a plurality of perspectives.

17. A method of facilitating the presentation of data regarding the performance of an entity, comprising:

providing a data source of quantitative information about the current and historical performance of the entity;

providing a network of web sites, each having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface for invoking a predetermined tool for analyzing the entity according to that tool; and

providing on the web sites pointers to selected other ones of the web sites such that the pointers have the effect of arranging the web sites along a first selection vector related to a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and further arranging the web sites such that for each said parameter pointers organize the sites along a second selection vector along which are arrayed a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

20. A graphical user interface which presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of domain-specific performance data, and analytical tools for their evaluation.

21. The graphical user interface of claim 20 wherein an analytical tool may be selected for presenting an analysis of data in one of a number of predetermined, defined contexts.

22. The graphical user interface of claim 21 wherein the defined context is historical.

23. The graphical user interface of any of claims 20-22 wherein the interface is provided at a web site.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

26. The method of claim 24 or claim 25 further including receiving a user'"'"'s selection of an entity identity just once while allowing a user to navigate among said analytical tools.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein signaling includes clicking a mouse button.

29. The method of claim 24 or claim 25 wherein said entity is a sports team.

24. A method of facilitating the presentation of data relating to the performance of an entity, comprising:

providing a web site having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface;

in the graphical user interface, arranging along a first vector a plurality of parameters to be evaluated relative to said entity data and for each said parameter, arranging along a second vector a plurality of selectable analytical tools for evaluating the data.

30. A method of facilitating the presentation of data regarding the performance of an entity, comprising:

providing a data source of quantitative information about the current and historical performance of the entity;

providing a network of web sites, each having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface for invoking a predetermined tool for analyzing the entity according to that tool; and

providing on the web sites pointers to selected other ones of the web sites such that the pointers have the effect of arranging the web sites along a first selection vector related to a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and further arranging the web sites such that for each said parameter pointers organize the sites along a second selection vector along which are arrayed a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

31. The method of claim 30 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

32. The method of claim 30 or claim 31 further including receiving a user'"'"'s selection of an entity identification just once while allowing a user to select desired ones of said pointers to navigate among said analytical tools.

33. The method of claim 32 wherein each pointer corresponds to a tool and tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool itself or a pointer to the tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein each pointer corresponds to a tool and tools are selectable by a user moving a cursor onto a cell representing a tool itself or a pointer to the tool and then signaling selection of the tool.

39. The computer program product of claim 38 wherein an analytical tool may be selected for presenting an analysis of data in one of a number of predetermined, defined contexts.

34. A graphical user interface which presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of past performance of an entity and analytical tools for studying the entity'"'"'s performance from a plurality of perspectives.

35. A method of facilitating the presentation of data regarding the performance of an entity, comprising:

providing a data source of quantitative information about the current and historical performance of the entity;

providing a network of web sites, each having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface for invoking a predetermined tool for analyzing the entity according to that tool; and

providing on the web sites pointers to selected other ones of the web sites such that the pointers have the effect of arranging the web sites along a first selection vector related to a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and further arranging the web sites such that for each said parameter pointers organize the sites along a second selection vector along which are arrayed a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

38. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium having encoded therein instructions which when executed by a computer system provides a graphical user interface which presents to a user a hierarchical arrangement of at least one of company performance and security performance, and analytical tools for their evaluation.

40. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium having encoded therein instructions which when executed by a computer system provides a web site having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface in which there are arranged along a first vector a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and for each said parameter, there are arranged along a second vector a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

41. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.

42. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the parameters relate to a company or its security and the instructions allow a user'"'"'s selection of a company name or security symbol to be input just once while allowing a user to navigate among said analytical tools.

43. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium having encoded therein instructions which when executed by a computer system provides

a network of web sites, each having a page which, when addressed, provides a graphical user interface for invoking a predetermined tool for analyzing a security according to that tool;

and

on the web sites, pointers to selected other ones of the web sites, such that the pointers have the effect of arranging the web sites along a first selection vector related to a plurality of parameters to be evaluated and further arranging the web sites such that for each said parameter pointers organize the sites along a second selection vector along which are arrayed a plurality of selectable analytical tools.

44. The computer program product of claim 43 wherein the analytical tools arranged along said second vector are arranged in like order for each of the parameters.