Predicting user navigation events

• US 8,566,696 B1
• Filed: 07/14/2011
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Hamon, Dominic, Burkard, Timo, Jain, Arvind
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton, Jr., Doug
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dasgupta, Soumya
• Application Number:
  US13/182,920
• Time in Patent Office: 831 Days
• Field of Search: 715/205, 715/244
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation

Abstract

A method and system for predicting a next navigation event are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by predicting the next navigation event. The system and method may then prerender content associated with the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next uniform resource locator during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page. The methods describe a variety of manners of predicting the next navigation event, including examining individual and aggregate historical data, text entry prediction, and cursor input monitoring.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for predicting a user navigation event, the method comprising:

rendering a web page in a web browser;

generating a page map, using a processor, the page map comprising a screen coordinate for each of one or more links associated with the web page;

updating the page map in response to a change in a location of the one or more links relative to an anchor point on the web page;

identifying a position of a cursor using the page map, the cursor being used to perform selection operations within the web browser;

determining one or more cursor movement indicators from the position of the cursor;

deriving, with the processor, a probability value that a user will select each link using the one or more cursor movement indicators;

identifying, with the processor, a predicted navigation event using the probability value; and

without a user selecting the link associated with the predicted navigation event, prerendering the predicted navigation event using the web browser.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cursor movement indicators comprise at least one of a cursor movement vector, a cursor velocity, a proximity of the cursor to each of the one or more links, and whether the cursor is moving toward or away from each of the one or more links.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein a given one of the one or more cursor movement indicators is whether the cursor is moving toward or away from each of the one or more links and the probability value that a user will select a given link decreases as the cursor moves away from the given link.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein a given one of the one or more cursor movement indicators is whether the cursor is moving toward or away from each of the one or more links and the probability value that a user will select a given link increases as the cursor moves toward the given link.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the change in the location is caused by at least one of a page scroll operation, a window resize operation, and a font size change.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more links within the page map are links that are visible to the user in a browser interface window.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

adding a new link to the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the new link is newly displayed in the browser window; and

removing an old link from the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the old link is no longer visible in the browser window.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the proximity is measured by the square of the distance between the mouse cursor and the coordinate associated with the link.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:

rendering a web page in a web browser;

generating a page map, the page map comprising a screen coordinate for each of one or more links associated with the web page;

updating the page map in response to a change in a location of the one or more links relative to an anchor point on the web page;

identifying a position of a cursor using the page map, the cursor being used to perform selection operations within the web browser;

determining one or more cursor movement indicators from the position of the cursor;

deriving, with the processor, a probability value that a user will select each link using the one or more cursor movement indicators;

identifying, with the processor, a predicted navigation event using the probability value; and

without a user selecting the link associated with the predicted navigation event, prerendering the predicted navigation event using the web browser.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the cursor movement indicators comprise at least one of a cursor movement vector, a cursor velocity, a proximity of the cursor to each of the one or more links, and whether the cursor is moving toward or away from each of the one or more links.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the change in the location is caused by at least one of a page scroll operation, a window resize operation, and a font size change.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the one or more links within the page map are links that are visible to the user in a browser interface window.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the processor-executable method further comprises:

adding a new link to the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the new link is newly displayed in the browser window; and

removing an old link from the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the old link is no longer visible in the browser window.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the proximity is measured by the square of the distance between the mouse cursor and the coordinate associated with the link.

15. A processing system for accessing network content, the processing system comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory, coupled to the at least one processor, for storing a page map comprising a screen coordinate for each of one or more links associated with a web page;

the at least one processor being configured to;

generate the page map upon loading the web page in a web browser;

update the page map in response to a change in a location of the one or more links relative to an anchor point on the web page;

identify a position of a cursor using the page map, the cursor being used to perform selection operations within the web browser;

determine one or more cursor movement indicators from the position of the cursor;

derive a probability value that a user will select each link using the one or more cursor movement indicators;

identify a predicted navigation event using the probability value; and

without a user selecting the link associated with the predicted navigation event, prerender the predicted navigation event using the web browser.

16. The processing system of claim 15, wherein the cursor movement indicators comprise at least one of a cursor movement vector, a cursor velocity, a proximity of the cursor to each of the one or more links, and whether the cursor is moving toward or away from each of the one or more links.

17. The processing system of claim 15, wherein the change in the location is caused by at least one of a page scroll operation, a window resize operation, and a font size change.

18. The processing system of claim 15, wherein the one or more links within the page map are links that are visible to the user in a browser interface window.

19. The processing system of claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured to:

add a new link to the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the new link is newly displayed in the browser window; and

remove an old link from the page map when the web browser window is modified such that the old link is no longer visible in the browser window.