APPLICATION MENU MODIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS

• US 20160209996A1
• Filed: 09/19/2013
• Published: 07/21/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Spiegel, Ofer
• Granted Patent: US 11,256,385 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

In one example of the disclosure, a menu and a plurality of menu elements included within the menu are identified within a software application. A set of menu traversal tracking measures are performed with respect to a target element from the plurality. The set of measures includes, responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that is not a selection of the target element, incrementing the value of a counter. The set includes, responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that is a selection of the target element, recording the value of the counter in association with data indicative of the target element. A recommendation to modify a first element among the plurality is generated in consideration of the recorded value.

Claims

1. A memory resource storing instructions that when executed cause a processing resource to implement a system for recommending application menu modifications, the instructions comprising:

a menu module, to identify, within a software application, a menu and a plurality of menu elements included within the menu;

a tracking module, to perform a set of menu traversal tracking measures with respect to a target element from the plurality, including

responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that is not a selection of the target element, incrementing the value of a counter, and

responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that is a selection of the target element, recording the value of the counter in association with data indicative of the target element;

a recommendation module, to generate, in consideration of the recorded value, a recommendation to modify a first element among the plurality.

2. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the menu is a graphical user interface menu, and the plurality of menu elements are graphical user interface menu elements.

3. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the modification is to relocate the first element to a new location within the menu.

4. The memory resource of claim 1,

wherein the tracking module includes instructions to perform the set of traversal tracking measures successive times, with each of the plurality of elements at some point designated as the target element such that each of the plurality of elements will have an associated recorded value;

and

wherein the recommendation is generated in consideration of recorded values of the counter associated with the plurality of elements.

5. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the application is a web application.

6. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the set of tracking measures includes setting the counter to a start value responsive to detecting repetitive selection of a same element from the plurality over a specific period of time.

7. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the menu and the plurality of menu elements are to appear in a first page display, and wherein the set of tracking measures includes setting the counter to a start value responsive to detecting a user action to cause loading of a second page display.

8. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the set of tracking measures includes setting the counter to a start value after identification of a user menu traversal action that is a selection of the target element.

9. The memory resource of claim 1, wherein the tracking module includes instructions to perform the set of measures for each of a plurality of traversal runs, and wherein generation of the recommendation is in consideration of an average of recorded values of the counter.

10. A message delivery system to recommend application menu modifications, comprising:

a menu engine to identify, within a software application display,

a menu, and

a plurality of menu elements included within the menu;

a tracking engine to perform a set of measures for tracking of user menu traversals, the measures including

designating an element from the plurality as a target element;

responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that does not include activation of the target element, incrementing the value of a counter;

responsive to identifying a user menu traversal action that includes an activation of the target element, recording in a database the value of the counter in association with an identifier for the target element;

a recommendation engine, to generate, according to a rule that includes as a factor a recorded value of the counter, a recommendation to modify a first element among the plurality.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the tracking engine is to set the counter to a start value upon detection of subsequent activations of a same element from the plurality over a specific period of time.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the rule includes a comparison of the recorded value against an expected counter value for the target element.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the recommendation includes a recommendation to relocate the first element to a new position within the menu.

14. The system of claim 13,

wherein the tracking engine is to perform the set of measures for each of a plurality of traversal runs;

wherein the set of measures includes, for each run, recording a user traversal path to reach the target element;

wherein the tracking engine is to calculate a number of occurrences of each path during the plurality of runs;

wherein the rule includes, for each of the target elements, a comparison of an average of recorded values of the counter against an expected counter value; and

wherein the first element has an average recorded value of the counter that exceeds an expected counter value, and the rule includes identifying as the new position a menu position within a path that ends with the first element and has a highest numb of occurrences.

15. A method for recommending modifications for application menus, comprising:

identifying, within a software application display,

a graphical user interface menu, and

a plurality of menu elements included within the menu;

performing a set of menu traversal tracking events for each of the elements of the plurality, the set including

designating a target element;

setting a value of a counter a start value, and

identifying a user menu traversal action;

if the traversal action does not include selection of the target element, the value of the counter is incremented;

if the traversal action does include selection of the target element, the value of the counter is recorded in a database in association with an identifier for the target element;

generating, in consideration of the values of the counter recorded for each of the plurality of elements and expected counter values for the elements, a recommendation to relocate the first element to a new location within the menu.