AUTOMATICALLY ADAPTING A USER INTERFACE

• US 20080189628A1
• Filed: 10/02/2007
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Schmitt, Stefan, Liesche, Stefan, Nauerz, Andreas, Waterstrat, Holger
• Granted Patent: US 9,898,534 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/762
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A portal server comprises memory, a profile manager, a profile selector, and a profile initiator. The profile manager is configured to manage a plurality of profile records in a profile database. The profile selector is configured to select at least one of the plurality of profile records based on context data collected at a client and context data collected at the portal server. The collected context data corresponds to particular user interaction activity with the portal server. The profile initiator is configured to adapt a user interface based on the profile selected by the profile selector.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

selecting a user interaction profile record in a user interaction profile database based, at least in part, on context data collected from a client and context data collected at a portal server for a particular user interaction with the portal server, wherein the collected client context data and the collected portal server context data indicate at least one usage condition; and

determining control information from the selected user interaction profile record;

triggering instantiation handlers based, at least in part, on the determined control information; and

changing state and content of a user interface with the triggered instantiation handlers to adapt the user interface to the at least one usage condition, wherein the user interface allows interaction with the portal server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said selecting comprises calculating a correspondence value that reflects correspondence between the collected context data and the interaction profile record.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said calculating the correspondence value comprises comparing at least one data element of said collected context data to at least one data element stored in the profile record.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said calculating the correspondence value comprises comparing multiple data elements and calculating a weighted sum of comparison results.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising collecting the context data, wherein the context data comprises at least one of date, time, time zone, geographic location, regional settings, IP-address, type of client device, markup language, currently selected user profile, available contacts, available tasks, performed actions, navigational position, and last visited page.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the profile record comprises a profile identifier, at least one profile attribute value, and a weighting factor for each attribute value.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said changing state and content of the user interface comprises configuring one or more of theme, default skin, available content, selected content, navigation structure, available contacts, business process filtering, current instant messaging status, page layout, available portlets, page meta data for influencing portlet content, contents of personal document folder, bookmarks, favorites, user preferences, and visible virtual team rooms.

8. One or more machine-readable media having stored therein a program product, which when executed a set of one or more processors, causes the set of one or more processors to perform operations that comprise:

selecting a user interaction profile record in a user interaction profile database based, at least in part, on context data collected from a client and context data collected at a portal server for a particular user interaction with the portal server, wherein the collected client context data and the collected portal server context data indicate at least one usage condition; and

determining control information from the selected user interaction profile record;

triggering instantiation handlers based, at least in part, on the determined control information; and

changing state and content of a user interface with the triggered instantiation handlers to adapt the user interface to the at least one usage condition, wherein the user interface allows interaction with the portal server.

9. The machine-readable media of claim 8, wherein said selecting operation comprises calculating a correspondence value that reflects correspondence between the collected context data and the interaction profile record.

10. The machine-readable media of claim 9 wherein said calculating the correspondence value operation comprises comparing at least one data element of said collected context data to at least one data element stored in the profile record.

11. The machine-readable media of claim 9, wherein said calculating the correspondence value operation comprises comparing multiple data elements and calculating a weighted sum of comparison results.

12. The machine-readable media of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise collecting the context data, wherein the context data is selected from a set consisting essentially of at least one of date, time, time zone, geographic location, regional settings, IP-address, type of client device, markup language, currently selected user profile, available contacts, available tasks, performed actions, navigational position, and last visited page.

13. The machine-readable media of claim 8, wherein the profile record comprises a profile identifier, at least one profile attribute value, and a weighting factor for each attribute value.

14. The machine-readable media of claim 8, wherein said changing operation comprises configuring one or more of theme, default skin, available content, selected content, navigation structure, available contacts, business process filtering, current instant messaging status, page layout, available portlets, page meta data for influencing portlet content, contents of personal document folder, bookmarks, favorites, user preferences, and visible virtual team rooms.

15. The machine-readable media of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

indicating a plurality of interaction profile records available to a user;

receiving an indication of the selected profile record, wherein the selected profile record was manually selected by a user and overrides an automatically selected profile record.

16. A portal server comprising:

memory;

a profile manager configured to manage a plurality of profile records in a profile database;

a profile selector configured to select at least one of the plurality of profile records based on context data collected at a client and context data collected at the portal server, wherein the collected context data corresponds to particular user interaction activity with the portal server; and

a profile initiator configured to adapt a user interface based on the profile selected by the profile selector.

17. The portal server of claim 16 further comprising a context detector configured to detect context data at the portal server.

18. The portal server of claim 16 further comprising a network interface configured to receive the context data collected at the client.

19. The portal server of claim 16, wherein the context data is selected from a set consisting essentially of at least one of date, time, time zone, geographic location, regional settings, IP-address, type of client device, markup language, currently selected user profile, available contacts, available tasks, performed actions, navigational position, and last visited page.

20. The portal server of claim 16, wherein the profile initiator configured to adapt comprises the profile initiator configured to adapt one or more of theme, default skin, available content, selected content, navigation structure, available contacts, business process filtering, current instant messaging status, page layout, available portlets, page meta data for influencing portlet content, contents of personal document folder, bookmarks, favorites, user preferences, and visible virtual team rooms.

21. A system comprising:

a client configured to collect context data at the client with one or more browser extensions and configured to transmit the collected client-side context data; and

a portal server configured to,

receive the client-side context data from the client;

collect context data at the portal server for a particular user interaction activity between the client and the portal server,

manage a plurality of profile records in a profile database,

select at least one of the plurality of profile records based on the collected context data,

adapt a user interface based on the selected profile.

22. The system of claim 21 further comprising the profile database.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the context data is selected from a set consisting essentially of at least one of date, time, time zone, geographic location, regional settings, IP-address, type of client device, markup language, currently selected user profile, available contacts, available tasks, performed actions, navigational position, and last visited page.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the portal server configured to adapt comprises the portal server configured to adapt at least one of theme, default skin, available content, selected content, navigation structure, available contacts, business process filtering, current instant messaging status, page layout, available portlets, page meta data for influencing portlet content, contents of personal document folder, bookmarks, favorites, user preferences, and visible virtual team rooms.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the client configured to collect context data comprises the client configured to collect data about user environment on the client.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the data about the user environment corresponds to at least one of presence and state of active desktop applications on the client.