METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERSONALIZATION OF AN APPLICATION

• US 20090112910A1
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Picault, Jerome, Ribiere, Myriam
• Application Number:
  US11/930,365
• Publication Number:
  US 20090112910A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

The invention relates to personalizing an application such as a content search and retrieval application. An ontology store (301) provides a multi-user ontology for a plurality of users. The multi-user ontology can be a standardised ontology. A user preference processor (303) provides a user preference profile for a first user and a concept processor (305) generates at least one additional concept for the multi-user ontology in response to the user preference profile. The additional concept is a predecessor concept for a group of concepts that have preferences in the user preference profile which meet a first criterion, such as a requirement that the concepts have sufficiently high preference values. An ontology processor (307) then generates a personalized ontology for the first user by adding the at least one additional concept to the multi-user ontology. An application processor (309) then proceeds to adapt the application for the first user in response to the personalised ontology.

Claims

1. A method of personalising an application, the method comprising:

providing a multi-user ontology for a plurality of users;

providing a user preference profile for at least a first user of the plurality of users;

generating at least one additional concept for the multi-user ontology in response to the user preference profile, the at least one additional concept being a predecessor concept for a group of concepts having preferences of the user preference profile meeting a first criterion;

generating a personalized ontology for the first user by adding the at least one additional concept to the multi-user ontology; and

adapting the application for the first user in response to the personalised ontology.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of determining properties for the at least one additional concept in response to properties of the group of concepts.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of determining properties for the at least one additional concept comprises determining the properties in response to a set of properties of the group of concepts meeting a similarity criterion.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the similarity criterion comprises a requirement that the properties are identical for all concepts of the group of concepts.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first criterion comprises a requirement that a preference value for each concept of the group of concepts exceeds a threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first criterion comprises a requirement that all concepts of the group of concepts have a common predecessor.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining a common predecessor concept for the group of concepts; and

wherein the step of generating the personalized ontology comprises including the at least one additional concept as an intermediate concept between the common predecessor and the group of concepts.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the common predecessor concept is a parent concept of each concept of the group of concepts.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the common predecessor concept is not a parent concept of each concept of the group of concepts.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one additional concept is added as a parent of each concept of the group of concepts.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the application is operable to present the user preference profile.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of adapting the application comprises presenting a preference value for the at least one additional concept and not presenting any preference value for any concept of the group of concepts.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the application is a search application capable of searching a set of content items, each content item having associated descriptive data in accordance with the multi-user ontology.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein step of adapting the application comprises modifying a search query in response to the personalized ontology.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the first criterion comprises a requirement that a search frequency for concepts of the group of concepts exceeds a threshold.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of adapting the user preference profile in response to user behaviour associated with the application.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the user preference profile comprises user preferences for at least some concepts of the multi-user ontology.

18. An apparatus for personalizing an application, the apparatus comprising:

a unit for providing a multi-user ontology for a plurality of users;

a unit for providing a user preference profile for at least a first user of the plurality of users;

a unit for generating at least one additional concept for the multi-user ontology in response to the user preference profile, the at least one additional concept being a predecessor concept for a group of concepts having preferences of the user preference profile meeting a first criterion;

a unit for generating a personalized ontology for the first user by adding the at least one additional concept to the multi-user ontology; and

a unit for adapting the application for the first user in response to the personalised ontology.