INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION AUGMENTED WITH CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION

• US 20150178388A1
• Filed: 12/19/2013
• Published: 06/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Winnemoeller, Holger, Steinsapir Stitchkin, Daniela Cecilia
• Granted Patent: US 10,565,268 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for augmenting an interactive communication session with contextually relevant information. A computing device, such as a smartphone or tablet computer, can be configured to provide an augmented chat application configured to create, send, receive and display a conversation, and further configured to locate, retrieve and display, via a graphical user interface (GUI), other information that is contextually relevant to the conversation. The contextual information may be shared with one or more other users who are participating in the conversation either automatically or in response to a user input. The contextual information can be displayed or otherwise presented to the user explicitly (e.g., the actual content of the contextual information can be displayed via the GUI) or implicitly (e.g., a referent to the contextual information, such as a hyperlink or other cue, can be displayed via the GUI).

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a message entered into an input field of a graphical user interface, the message forming a portion of a conversation stream in which a series of messages are exchanged among a plurality of users;

causing performance of an analysis of the message;

constructing a search query based on results of the analysis;

causing performance of a search of at least one data repository based on the search query; and

displaying contextual information based on results of the search in an output field of the graphical user interface, the output field being visible concurrently with the input field.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the search query is constructed such that it includes at least one search term related to the conversation stream.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising constructing the search query based at least in part on a previous message in the conversation stream.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising inserting at least a portion of the contextual information into the conversation stream.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising rendering each of the input field and output field in different portions of the graphical user interface.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending the contextual information to one or more remote devices each having a respective graphical user interface.

5. The method of claim 5, wherein the inserting is performed in response to receiving the results of the search.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the inserting is performed in response to receiving a user input that selects the displayed contextual information.

9. A computing device, comprising:

a display;

a storage comprising at least one memory; and

one or more processors each operatively coupled to the storage and the display, the one or more processors configured to carry out a process comprising;

receiving a message entered into an input field of a graphical user interface, the message forming a portion of a conversation stream in which a series of messages are exchanged among a plurality of users;

causing performance of an analysis of the message;

constructing a search query based on results of the analysis;

causing performance of a search of at least one data repository based on the search query; and

displaying, on the display, contextual information based on results of the search in an output field of the graphical user interface, the output field being visible concurrently with the input field.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the search query is constructed such that it includes at least one search term related to the conversation stream.

11. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the process further comprises constructing the search query based at least in part on a previous message in the conversation stream.

12. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the process further comprises inserting at least a portion of the contextual information into the conversation stream.

13. The computing device of claim 12, wherein the inserting is performed in response to receiving the results of the search.

14. The computing device of claim 12, wherein the inserting is performed in response to receiving a user input that selects the displayed contextual information.

15. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the process further comprises rendering each of the input field and output field in different portions of the graphical user interface.

16. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the process further comprises sending the contextual information to one or more remote devices each having a respective graphical user interface.

17. A non-transient computer program product having instructions encoded thereon that when executed by one or more processors cause a process to be carried out, the process comprising:

receiving a message entered into an input field of a graphical user interface, the message forming a portion of a conversation stream in which a series of messages are exchanged among a plurality of users;

causing performance of an analysis of the message;

constructing a search query based on results of the analysis;

causing performance of a search of at least one data repository based on the search query; and

displaying contextual information based on results of the search in an output field of the graphical user interface, the output field being visible concurrently with the input field.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the search query is constructed such that it includes at least one search term related to the conversation stream.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the process further comprises constructing the search query based at least in part on a previous message in the conversation stream.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, further comprising inserting at least a portion of the contextual information into the conversation stream in response to at least one of receiving the results of the search and receiving a user input that selects the displayed contextual information.