System and method for intent data processing

• US 8,645,300 B1
• Filed: 07/20/2011
• Issued: 02/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: USC IP Partnership, LP (USC IP Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Usability Sciences Corporation
• Inventors: Cowdrey, Russell, Cone, Jason, Cranford, Brad
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin, Jeffrey A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Misir, Dave
• Application Number:
  US13/186,787
• Time in Patent Office: 930 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 706/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Website navigation may be enhanced by recording a visitor'"'"'s intent and recording page rankings that indicate how well the pages of a website match the visitor'"'"'s intent. Using historical intent data, an intent can be inferred for a visitor based on a URL. Page recommendations can also be made once a visitor has confirmed their intent by determining a ranked list of URLs for the indicated intent. Intent data may be collected and displayed by integrating an intent widget into webpages of a website.

Claims

1. A method for predicting an intent of a visitor to a webpage, the method comprising:

receiving into an intent engine at least one input parameter from a web browser displaying the webpage;

processing the at least one input parameter in the intent engine to determine at least one inferred intent;

providing the at least one inferred intent to the web browser to cause the at least one inferred intent to be displayed on the webpage;

prompting the visitor to confirm the visitor'"'"'s intent;

receiving a confirmed intent into the intent engine;

processing the confirmed intent in the intent engine to determine at least one recommended webpage that matches the confirmed intent, the at least one recommended webpage selected from a plurality of webpages within a defined namespace;

causing the webpage in the web browser to display at least one link to the at least one recommended webpage;

prompting the visitor to rank the webpage for the inferred intent;

receiving a rank from the web browser; and

storing a datapoint comprising an identity of the webpage, the inferred intent and the received rank.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the at least one input parameter comprises an identity of the webpage.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein processing the at least one input parameter comprises determining a ranked list of intents for the webpage.

4. The method according to claim 3 comprising:

selecting the highest ranked intent for the webpage; and

causing at least the highest ranked intent to be displayed on the webpage in the web browser.

5. A method for predicting a navigation destination for a visitor of a webpage belonging to a defined namespace comprising a plurality of webpages, the method comprising:

prompting the visitor to indicate an intent on a webpage displayed at a browser of the visitor;

receiving the indicated intent from the browser into an intent engine;

processing the indicated intent in the intent engine to determine one or more recommended webpages of the plurality of webpages; and

causing one or more links to the one or more recommended webpages to be displayed in the webpage at the browser;

wherein processing the indicated intent comprises using the indicated intent as a reference to intent ranking data that ranks the plurality of webpages for the indicated intent, the intent ranking data comprising intent data provided by previous visitors to one or more webpages of the namespace.

6. The method according to claim 5 wherein processing the intent comprises determining a ranked list of webpages of the namespace for the indicated intent.

7. The method according to claim 6 wherein determining the ranked list comprises processing a plurality of datapoints, each datapoint comprising:

an identity of a webpage of the namespace;

an intent; and

a ranking of the intent for the respective webpage.

8. The method according to claim 5 wherein prompting the user to indicate an intent comprises:

inferring at least one intent from an identity of the webpage displayed in the browser; and

causing the at least one inferred intent to be displayed on the webpage displayed in the browser.

9. The method according to claim 5 comprising:

prompting the visitor to indicate a rank of a webpage for an indicated intent;

receiving the indicated rank into the intent engine; and

storing a datapoint in a database, the datapoint comprising;

an identity of the ranked webpage;

the indicated intent; and

the ranking.

10. The method according to claim 5 wherein prompting the visitor to indicate an intent comprises:

generating a ranked list of intents for the namespace;

causing one or more intents from the ranked list of intents to be displayed in the webpage at the browser.

11. An intent processing system comprising:

an intent engine configured to display an intent tool in at least one webpage when the at least one webpage is loaded into a user browser, the intent tool comprising a plurality of display elements comprising one or more of;

an intent field;

a recommendation field; and

a ranking tool; and

at least one database configured to store intent data;

wherein the intent engine is configured to;

display at least one intent in the intent field;

display at least one webpage recommendation in the recommendation field; and

receive ranking data from the ranking tool and store the ranking data in the at least one database.

12. The intent processing system according to claim 11 wherein the intent engine is configured to:

receive a ranking of a page from the ranking tool;

generate a datapoint comprising;

a current intent indicated by the intent field;

a current webpage loaded in the user browser; and

the received ranking; and

store the generated datapoint in the at least one database.

13. The intent processing system according to claim 12 wherein the intent engine is configured to process a plurality of the datapoints stored in the at least one database to determine a ranked list of webpages for an intent.

14. The intent processing system according to claim 13 wherein the intent engine is configured to:

receive a confirmed intent from the intent field of a webpage loaded in the user browser;

reference a ranked list of webpages for the confirmed intent to select at least one recommended webpage; and

provide at least one link for the at least one recommended webpage to the recommendation field of the intent tool displayed in the webpage loaded in the user browser.

15. The intent processing system according to claim 12 wherein the intent engine is configured to process a plurality of the datapoints received from a plurality of users to determine a ranked list of intents for a webpage.

16. The intent processing system according to claim 11 wherein the intent engine is configured to store a definition of a namespace in the at least one database, the definition of the namespace comprising a plurality of webpages, and wherein the at least one webpage recommendation is selected from the plurality of webpages of the namespace.

17. The intent processing system according to claim 11 wherein the intent tool comprises a configurable widget.