Interaction with a Portion of a Content Item through a Virtual Assistant

• US 20140244266A1
• Filed: 02/22/2013
• Published: 08/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verint Americas Incorporated (Verint Systems Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Next IT Corporation (Verint Systems Incorporated)
• Inventors: Brown, Fred A., Miller, Tanya M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,672,822 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command

Abstract

Techniques for interacting with a portion of a content item through a virtual assistant are described herein. The techniques may include identifying a portion of a content item that is relevant to user input and causing an action to be performed related to the portion of the content item. The action may include, for example, displaying the portion of the content item on a smart device in a displayable format that is adapted to a display characteristic of the smart device, performing a task for a user that satisfies the user input, and so on.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving speech input from a user of a smart device, the speech input requesting an action associated with a content item;

identifying a portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input; and

upon identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input, displaying the portion of the content item on the smart device in a displayable format that is adapted to a display characteristic of the smart device.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input comprises determining a portion of the content item that is relevant to the speech input and that is displayable on the smart device at a particular legibility level.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input comprises identifying a portion of the content item that includes a tag related to the speech input.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the content item is viewable on the smart device at a legibility level above a particular legibility threshold.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input comprises:

sending the speech input to a remote computing device for processing; and

receiving information from the remote computing device identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the speech input.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the content item comprises at least one of text or one or more images that are relevant to the speech input.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the content item is formatted for a display that is larger in area than a display of the smart device.

8. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed, instruct one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving user input requesting an action associated a content item;

identifying a portion of the content item that satisfies the user input; and

upon identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input, causing display of the portion of the content item on a smart device in a displayable format that is adapted to a display characteristic of the smart device.

9. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input comprises analyzing the content item to determine a portion of the content item that is relevant to the user input.

10. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input comprises identifying a portion of the content item that includes a tag related to the user input.

11. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the portion of the content item is viewable on the smart device at a legibility level above a particular legibility threshold.

12. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the content item is formatted for a display that is larger in area than a display of the smart device.

13. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the content item comprises a single web page.

14. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving user input requesting an action associated a content item;

determining a portion of the content item that satisfies the user input, the determining being based at least in part on at least one of one or more tags that are associated with portions of the content item or an analysis of the portions of the content item; and

upon determining the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input, utilizing the portion of the content item to perform the action requested by the user input, the action being performed at least in part by a virtual assistant.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising:

before determining the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input, performing speech recognition to convert the user input into a format that is understood by a device,

wherein determining the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input comprises utilizing the converted user input to determine the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein determining the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input comprises analyzing the content item to determine a portion of the content item that is relevant to the user input.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein determining the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input comprises determining a portion of the content item that is tagged as being relevant to a particular request, the particular request being the same as the user input or having a threshold amount of similarity to the user input.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the portion of the content item comprises displayable content that is viewable at a particular legibility level on a display that has one or more dimensions below a particular value.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein:

the action comprises displaying the portion of the content item on a smart device, and

the portion of the content item that satisfies the user input is determined based at least in part on one or more display characteristics of the smart device.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the action comprises at least one of performing a task for a user based at least in part on the portion of the content item, displaying the portion of the content item, or displaying information associated with the portion of the content item.

21. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed, instruct one or more processors to perform the method of claim 14.

22. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving user input requesting an action associated with a content item;

causing the user input and the content item to be output to a user to solicit feedback from the user;

after causing the user input and content item to be output, receiving content identification input from the user identifying a portion of the content item that is relevant to the user input; and

upon receiving the content identification input, assigning a tag to the portion of the content item, the tag indicating that the portion of the content item is relevant to a particular category or term associated with the user input.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein the content identification input identifies content of the content item that has been selected by the user to be associated with the particular category or term of the user input.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, further comprising:

after assigning the tag to the portion of the content item, receiving further user input from a smart device;

determining that the tag assigned to the portion of the content item is related to the further user input; and

upon determining the tag assigned to the portion of the content item is related to the further user input, causing the portion of the content item to be displayed on the smart device.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein the content item is caused to be output to the user by causing the content item to be displayed to the user.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein the content item comprises a single web page.

27. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed, instruct one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

outputting user input of a first user to a second user, the user input requesting an action associated with a content item;

displaying the content item to the second user to solicit an identification of a portion of the content item that is related to the user input;

receiving, from the second user, a selection of the portion of the content item that is related to the user input; and

associating a tag with the portion of the content item based at least in part on the selection of the portion of the content item.

28. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 27, wherein the tag indicates that the portion of the content item is associated with a particular category or term related to the user input.

29. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 27, wherein the operations further comprise:

after associating the tag with the portion of the content item, receiving further user input from a smart device;

determining that the tag assigned to the portion of the content item is related to the further user input; and

upon determining the tag assigned to the portion of the content item is related to the further user input, causing the portion of the content item to be displayed on the smart device.

30. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 27, wherein the content item comprises a single web page and the portion of the web page that is tagged comprises a portion from among multiple portions of the web page that is most relevant to the user input.

31. A computer-implemented method comprising:

providing a virtual assistant to interface with a user;

causing the virtual assistant to solicit input from the user;

upon causing the virtual assistant to solicit input from the user, receiving input from the user requesting an action associated with a content item;

identifying a portion of the content item that satisfies the input; and

upon identifying the portion of the content item that satisfies the input, causing the virtual assistant to display the portion of the content item on a smart device in a displayable format that is adapted to a display characteristic of the smart device.

32. The computer-implemented method of claim 31, wherein the smart device has a display area that is smaller than a display area of a desktop computer.

33. The computer-implemented method of claim 31, wherein the content item comprises a single web page.

34. The computer-implemented method of claim 31, wherein the portion of the content is displayed on the smart device within a user interface associated with the virtual assistant.