PRESENTING SEARCH RESULTS ACCORDING TO QUERY DOMAINS

• US 20100312782A1
• Filed: 06/05/2009
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nguyen, Patrick, Acero, Alejandro, Li, Xiao, Zweig, Geoffrey
• Granted Patent: US 9,684,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/025 Phonemes, fenemes or fenones being the recognition units

Abstract

A query may be applied against search engines that respectively return a set of search results relating to various items discovered in the searched data sets. However, presenting numerous and varied search results may be difficult on mobile devices with small displays and limited computational resources. Instead, search results may be associated with search domains representing various information types (e.g., contacts, public figures, places, projects, movies, music, and books) and presented by grouping search results with associated query domains, e.g., in a tabbed user interface. The query may be received through an input device associated with a particular input domain, and may be transitioned to the query domain of a particular search engine (e.g., by recognizing phonemes of a voice query using an acoustic model; matching phonemes with query terms according to a pronunciation model; and generating a recognition result according to a vocabulary of an n-gram language model.)

Claims

1. A method of presenting search results in response to a query on behalf of a user of a device having a processor and a display, the method comprising:

executing on the processor instructions configured to;

execute the query on at least one search engine to generate at least one search result;

associate respective search results with at least one query domain; and

present on the display the query domains grouped with associated search results.

2. The method of claim 1:

the device comprising at least one input component associated with an input domain, and

the instructions configured to receive the query through at least one input component.

3. The method of claim 2, receiving the query comprising:

presenting on the display an input control associated with an input component and configured to receive the query through the input component; and

upon detecting a user activation of the input control, receiving the query through the input component associated with the input control.

4. The method of claim 2, the instructions configured to, after receiving the query and before executing the query on the at least one search engine, normalize the query.

5. The method of claim 4:

at least one input component of the device associated with an input domain having an input grammar; and

the instructions comprising;

after receiving the query, normalizing the query according to an input grammar associated with the input component receiving the query.

6. The method of claim 4:

the device comprising a query term normalization database storing at least one common query term; and

normalizing the query comprising;

identifying at least one common query term in the query term normalization database that approximates a query term of the textual query, and

upon identifying the at least one query term, replacing the query term in the textual query with the common query term.

7. The method of claim 2:

at least one input component of the device comprising an audio input component;

the query comprising an audio query received through an audio input component;

at least one search engine comprising a textual search engine configured to handle textual queries; and

the instructions configured to, after receiving the query through the audio input component and before executing the query on the textual search engine, transitioning the audio query to a textual query.

8. The method of claim 7, transitioning the query comprising:

identifying at least one phoneme in the query according to an acoustic model;

identifying at least one query term corresponding to the at least one phoneme according to a pronunciation model; and

generating a recognition result from the at least one query term according to a vocabulary of an n-gram language model.

9. The method of claim 7, the instructions configured to, after recognizing the audio query to a textual query and before executing the query on the textual search engine, confirm the textual query with the user.

10. The method of claim 1:

respective query domains associated with search results identifiable by at least one distinctive characteristic, and

associating the search results with query domains comprising;

identifying at least one distinctive characteristic of the search result, and

associating the search result with the at least one query domain according to the at least one identified distinctive characteristic.

11. The method of claim 10, associating the search result with a query domain comprising:

evaluating the search result with a statistical classifier configured to identify the query domain of a search result having the at least one distinctive characteristic.

12. The method of claim 1, presenting the query domains comprising:

present on the display a grouped interface comprising groups allocated to respective query domains and presenting a name of the query domain; and

upon receiving a user selection of a group, present on the display;

the query domain associated with the group, and

the search results associated with the query domain.

13. The method of claim 12, the groups comprising tabs in a tabbed user interface.

14. The method of claim 1:

the instructions configured to identify at least two search results associated with a query domain that are associated with a topic, and

presenting the query domains comprising;

presenting on the display the at least two search results grouped together within the query domain.

15. The method of claim 1:

respective search results having a relevance score;

the instructions defining a minimally sufficient relevance score; and

presenting the query domains comprising;

presenting on the display the query domains grouped with associated search results having a relevance score at least equaling the minimally sufficient relevance score.

16. The method of claim 15, presenting the query domains comprising:

presenting on the display the query domains grouped with associated search results, the search results sorted in descending order by relevance score.

17. The method of claim 15, presenting the query domains comprising:

computing a query domain relevance score of respective domains based on the relevance scores of the search results associated with the query domain, and

presenting on the display the query domains sorted in descending order by query domain relevance score.

18. The method of claim 15:

presenting the query domains comprising;

presenting on the display the query domains associated with at least one search result having a relevance score at least equaling the minimally sufficient relevance score.

19. A system configured to present search results in response to a query on behalf of a user of a device having a display, the system comprising:

a query executing component configured to execute the query on at least one search engine to generate at least one search result;

a query domain associating component configured to associate respective search results with at least one query domain; and

a search result presenting component configured to present on the display the query domains grouped with associated search results.

20. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor of a device having a display and at least one input component associated with an input domain having an input grammar comprising a query term normalization database storing at least one common query term, present search results in response to a query on behalf of a user of the device by:

presenting on the display an input control associated with an input component and configured to receive the query through the input component; and

upon detecting a user activation of the input control;

receiving the query through the input component associated with the input control;

transitioning the query to a query domain of at least one search engine by;

identifying at least one phoneme in the query according to an acoustic model,

identifying at least one query term corresponding to the at least one phoneme according to a pronunciation model, and

generating a recognition result from the at least one query term according to a vocabulary of an n-gram language model;

executing the query on at least one search engine to generate at least one search result, respective search results having a relevance score;

associating respective search results with at least one query domain associated with search results identifiable by at least one distinctive characteristic by;

identifying at least one distinctive characteristic of the search result, and

associating the search result with the at least one query domain according to the at least one identified distinctive characteristic;

presenting on the display a tabbed user interface comprising tabs allocated to respective query domains and presenting a name of the query domain; and

upon receiving a user selection of a tab, presenting on the display;

the query domain associated with the group, and

the search results associated with the query domain, the search results sorted in descending order by relevance score.