System and methods for constructing personalized context-sensitive portal pages or views by analyzing patterns of users' information access activities

• US 7,702,635 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2005
• Issued: 04/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Anderson, Corin Ross, Horvitz, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz; Apu M
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU N
• Application Number:
  US11/191,184
• Publication Number:
  US 20050278326A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,728 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/2, 709/203, 709/224, 705/1, 705/14
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology to assist users with data access activities and that includes such activities as routine web browsing and/or data access applications. A coalesced display or montage of aggregated information is provided that is focused from a plurality of sources to achieve substantially one-button access to user'"'"'s desired web or data source information/destinations in order to mitigate efforts in retrieving and viewing such information. Past web or other type data access patterns can be mined to predict future browsing sites or desired access locations. A system is provided that builds personalized web portals for associated users based on models mined from past data access patterns. The portals can provide links to web resources as well as embed content from distal (remote) pages or sites producing a montage of web or other type data content. Automated topic classification is employed to create multiple topic-centric views that can be invoked by a user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

employing a processor executing computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium to implement the following acts;

computing a statistical predictive model of a user'"'"'s web page revisit interval based at least on the user'"'"'s historical pattern of access to a web page, the user'"'"'s pattern of access is determined using data collected in connection with a plurality of the user'"'"'s past accesses to the web page;

using inferred user revisit intervals derived from the predictive model to distinguish between an automated refresh of the web page and a request for access to the web page by the user; and

determining a probability of information associated with the web page having value to a user given evidence of the user'"'"'s interest in the web page, the probability formulated as;

Pr(Information Value |E±

, Ez, . . . Ej_),

wherein Pr is the probability, Information Value relates to an importance of the site and topic to the user given evidence E relating to attributes of information importance, and J being an integer, the evidence including at least one of;

how much time the user spends observing the web page;

higher-level topic of the web page viewed;

interactivity with the web page; and

a consideration of navigation efforts of a user to navigate to the web page;

comparing a log of accesses to the web page with a statistical mode of a probability distribution of the user'"'"'s revisit intervals for a respective URL; and

discarding accesses in the log that are within a tolerance of the statistical mode when at least 10% of the intervals between logged accesses belong to the mode.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recording at least one context relating to the user'"'"'s historical pattern of access; and

determining future access patterns based at least in part on the historical pattern of access and the recorded context.

3. The method of claim 2, the at least one context comprises information regarding at least one of the following:

an anniversary associated with the user;

an event; and

a meeting.

4. A system comprising:

a processor;

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory having stored therein computer-executable instructions configured to implement the system, including;

means for computing a statistical predictive model of a user'"'"'s web page revisit interval based at least on the user'"'"'s historical pattern of access to a web page, the user'"'"'s pattern of access is determined using data collected in connection with a plurality of the user'"'"'s past accesses to the web site;

means for using inferred user revisit intervals derived from the predictive model to distinguish between an automated refresh of the web page and a request for access to the web page by the user; and

means for determining a probability of information associated with the web page having value to a user given evidence of the user'"'"'s interest in the web page, the probability formulated as;

Pr(Information Value |E±

, Ez, . . . Ej_),

wherein Pr is the probability, Information Value relates to an importance of the site and topic to the user given evidence F relating to attributes of information importance, and J being an integer, the evidence including at least one of;

how much time the user spends observing the web page;

higher-level topic of the web page viewed;

interactivity with the web page; and

a consideration of navigation efforts of a user to navigate to the web page;

means for comparing a log of accesses to the web page with a statistical mode of a probability distribution of the use'"'"'s revisit intervals for a respective URL; and

means for discarding accesses in the loci that are within a tolerance of the statistical mode when at least 10% of the intervals between logged accesses belong to the mode.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising:

means for recording at least one context relating to the user'"'"'s historical pattern of access; and

means for determining future access patterns based at least in part on the historical pattern of access and the recorded context.

6. The system of claim 4, further comprising:

means for determining a probability of information value to a user given evidence of the user'"'"'s interest in the web page.