System, Method, and User Interface for Organizing and Searching Information

• US 20100082634A1
• Filed: 04/30/2009
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zetta Research and Development LLC - FORC Series
• Original Assignee: Roy Leban
• Inventors: Leban, Roy
• Granted Patent: US 8,019,749 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A computer-implemented system, method, and user interface for searching and organizing information, particularly large information sets such as those found on the Internet and World Wide Web. Information is organized and searched according to content, and this organization is reflected directly in the user interface provided to users for searching as well as the search results they are shown.

Claims

1. A method of using a search user interface for the purpose of finding a plurality of search results meeting specific search criteria, the method comprising,

specifying a plurality of search options;

selecting a search action which initiates a search request using said search options;

viewing the results of said search request, where said results comprise

a set of data items, wherein each data item has a plurality of data item attributes;

a plurality of lists of data items found within said set of data items, wherein each list is a non-exclusive subset of said results, and wherein each data item found in said results is contained in a plurality of said lists;

viewing the results, including possibly altering the on-screen results by selecting a different viewer user interface for the search results, changing which data sets are included or excluded, or display a drill-down view of a plurality of data sets;

determining if the desired result has been found and, if so, ending the search;

specifying a designated subset or manually specifying a new subset of data items for which a subsequent search should be performed;

optionally altering a plurality of the search options;

repeating steps (c) through (g) until the desired result has been found or it is determined that it cannot be found.

2. A computer-implemented user interface, comprising

a user interface for specifying a search, comprising

a plurality of user input controls and fields, and

a plurality of action buttons;

a connection to a search engine to return the results of said search, consisting of a set of data items, wherein each data item has a plurality of data item attributes; and

a user interface for displaying said results, comprising

a plurality of lists of data items found in said results, wherein each list is a non-exclusive subset of said results, and wherein each data item found in said results is contained in a plurality of said lists,

a plurality of means to display said results, wherein

the method of selecting which data items are contained in which list is defined by said display means,

said display means are capable of displaying a subset of the actual results, where only the actual results being displayed are retrieved from the search engine,

said display means displays a plurality of data item attributes for each displayed data items, and

if said plurality of display means comprises more than one display means, a means for the user to choose which of said display means is to be used to display the results of said search, and

a means for the user to perform a subsequent search, wherein said subsequent search is performed within the data items that comprise a single list of data items chosen by the user.

3. The user interface of claim 2 wherein the means to display said results are chosen from a Venn diagram viewer, a tree viewer, a collapsible/expandable tree viewer, a table of contents viewer, an alphabetical data item viewer, an alphabetical category viewer, an index viewer, a cross-reference viewer, a viewer with a list of categories, a viewer displaying example information, a 2-dimensional graph viewer, a 2-dimensional chart viewer, a multi-dimensional graph viewer, a multi-dimensional chart viewer, a histogram viewer, a 2-dimensional histogram viewer, a pivotable graph viewer, and a pivotable chart viewer.

4. The user interface of claim 3 wherein the display means also comprises a plurality of controls which modify the way in which the display means displays its data and/or which lists of data are shown and/or how they are shown.

5. The user interface of claim 2 wherein the change of the display means causes said plurality of lists of data items to be recalculated according to said method of electing which data items are contained in which lists.

6. The user interface of claim 2 wherein the interface for specifying a search also comprises:

a plurality of user input controls and fields;

a plurality of action buttons;

a context engine, which, given the user-provided values of said user input controls and fields, produces a set of context-specific options which apply specifically to said user-provided values and which are updated immediately whenever said user-provided values are changed, by the user or otherwise;

a visible area for context-specific controls, comprising zero or more user interface controls, selected from the group of standard and custom controls, wherein each said user interface control is linked to a context-specific option, as determined by said context engine.

7. The user interface of claim 2, also comprising a history viewer or viewers, comprising a full or partial list of the search history of the user, including alternative paths not taken in the search, wherein each item in the history is a link which will switch to the designated search.

8. The user interface of claim 2, also comprising plurality of auxiliary items chosen from another results viewer, a sponsored links viewer, a more like options list, and a related searches list.

9. The user interface of claim 2, also comprising the display of context-specific ads within the display means.

10. The user interface of claim 9, where the context-specific ads are determined by the categories of information shown.

11. The user interface of claim 2, wherein each list displayed by the display means also comprises a control which displays more detailed information about the list, such as a larger subset of the list.

12. A method for mapping data, comprising:

receiving a plurality of input specifiers;

accessing a mapping table, containing a list of search mappings that map search specifiers to search index values;

comparing each input specifier with said list of search mappings and producing a list of search map values;

replacing each input specifier found in the mapping table with the corresponding map value; and

returning the resulting list of input specifiers and map values.

13. The method of claim 12 where the method is used in the creation of an index for a data set, wherein the input specifiers are the contents of data to be indexed.

14. The method of claim 12 where the method is used for the searching of an index for a data set, wherein the input specifiers are search input values supplied by a user.

15. The method of claim 12 where the mapping table is a dictionary/thesaurus mapping words and phrases to definition and synonyms.

16. The method of claim 12 where the mapping table is dynamically generated from the indexing operation.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising returning mapping type of each found map value to the caller so that it may be used in an external algorithm such as page ranking.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising pre-processing the input specifiers after they have been received with a domain-specific algorithm.

19. The method of claim 18 where the domain-specific algorithm comprises a natural language processor which extracts key phrases from the input specifiers.

20. The method of claim 12, where the method is used in a search engine.