Semantic searching using zoom operations

• US 9,576,049 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2012
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Macbeth, Steve
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Gregory J
• Application Number:
  US13/723,657
• Publication Number:
  US 20140181645A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,523 Days
• Field of Search: 715/200, 715/243, 715/249, 715/273, 715/276
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Computer storage media, computerized methods, and systems for semantically navigating between content using zoom operations, as well as other user-initiated operations, are provided. The zoom operations include an open-pinch gesture (zoom in) and a closed-pinch gesture (zoom out) physically applied to a touch-screen display of a client device, where the touch-screen display presents a document with original content. When one or more of the zoom operations have been detected as being performed upon a targeted portion of the original content, new content that is relevant to the targeted content is retrieved, as opposed to simply expanding or contracting the original content within a display area of the touch-screen display. The document is transitioned to a view with representations of the new content organized according to a format, where the format is dictated by a type of the one or more zoom operations being performed.

Claims

1. A computer system for navigating between semantically-related content in response to zoom operations within a document, the computer system comprising a processing unit coupled to a computer storage medium, the computer storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, implement a method, the method comprising:

detecting at least one zoom operation directed to a portion of original content within the document and transitioning from the document to a view that includes a new set of content that is linked to the original content via tendrils in a predefined directed graph, wherein the directed graph is constructed of a multi-dimensional lattice of semantic connections between nodes, wherein the nodes include the original content and the new set of content;

filtering content retrieved from one or more vendor modules to the new set of content and ordering the new set of content based on, in part, relevance to the original content;

determining a format of the view based on, in part, a type of the at least one zoom operation and organizing the new set of content in accordance within the format; and

providing the view for presentation at a display area.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the type of the at least one zoom operation comprises at least one of a zoom-in operation, a zoom-out operation, a pan-forward operation, or a pan-backward operation.

3. The computer system of claim 2, wherein the zoom-in operation is associated with a focused view that includes specific content associated with the original content and the zoom-out operation is associated with a generalized view that includes broad-scope content associated with the original content.

4. The computer system of claim 2, wherein the pan-forward operation and the pan-backward operation cause a retrieval of adjacent content that includes information related to a type of the document, and wherein the adjacent content is populated in the view that is provided for presentation at the display area.

5. The computer system of claim 4, wherein the type of the document comprises at least one of a search-engine results page, an offline document, an online document, a word-processing document, or a composed message.

6. One or more computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method comprising:

receiving an indication of a zoom operation that is directed to target content;

based on the indication of the zoom operation, transitioning to a view that includes new content, wherein the new content is linked to the target content via a connection in a directed graph comprising a multi-dimensional lattice of semantic connections, and wherein the new content includes third-party content that has been filtered and ranked based on relevance of the third-party content to the target content; and

providing the view for presentation at a display area, wherein a format of the view is based on a type of the zoom operation and the new content is organized based on the format.

7. The media of claim 6, wherein the type of the zoom operation comprises at least one of a zoom-in operation, a zoom-out operation, a pan-forward operation, or a pan-backward operation.

8. The media of claim 7, wherein the zoom-in operation represents an open-pinch gesture carried out on a touch-screen display of a client device.

9. The media of claim 7, wherein the zoom-out operation represents a close-pinch gesture carried out on a touch-screen display of a client device.

10. The media of claim 7, wherein the zoom-in operation is associated with a focused view that includes specific content associated with the target content and the zoom-out operation is associated with a generalized view that includes broad-scope content associated with the target content.

11. The media of claim 10, wherein the new content is based on configuration settings, wherein the configuration settings are influenced by at least one of a user, a publisher of a document that includes the target content, or an administrator of a system that returns the specific content or the broad-scope content.

12. The media of claim 7, wherein the pan-forward operation and the pan-backward operation cause a retrieval of adjacent content that includes information related to a type of document that includes the target content, and wherein the adjacent content is populated in the view that is provided for presentation at the display area.

13. The media of claim 7, wherein a twist operation causes a retrieval of content that includes a predefined type of information that has been predefined by at least one of a user or a publisher, and wherein the content that includes the predefined type of information is populated in the view that is provided for presentation at the display area.

14. The media of claim 6, wherein the method further comprises displaying visual cues to indicate a transition between the target content and the view that includes the new content.

15. The media of claim 6, wherein the target content is included in a document at least one of a search-engine results page, an offline document, an online document, a word-processing document, or a composed message.

16. A computerized method comprising:

receiving an indication of a user-initiated operation that is directed to target content, the target content comprising a portion of original content included in a document;

based on the indication of the user-initiated operation, transitioning to a view that includes new content, wherein the new content is linked to the target content via a connection in a directed graph comprising a multi-dimensional lattice of semantic connections, and wherein the new content includes third-party content that has been filtered and ranked based on relevance of the third-party content to the target content; and

providing the view for presentation at a display area, wherein the view is associated with a format that is based on a type of the user-initiated operation and the new content is organized based on the format.

17. The computerized method of claim 16, wherein the user-initiated operation comprises at least one of a zoom-in operation, a zoom-out operation, a pan-forward operation, a pan-backward operation, a right-twist operation, or a left-twist operation.

18. The computerized method of claim 17, wherein the zoom-in operation is associated with a focused view that includes specific content associated with the target content and the zoom-out operation is associated with a generalized view that includes broad-scope content associated with the target content.

19. The computerized method of claim 18, wherein the target content comprises a link on a search-engine results page, and wherein the zoom-in operation causes a web page associated with the link to open.

20. The computerized method of claim 18, wherein the target content comprises a web page associated with a link on a search-engine results page, and wherein the zoom-out operation causes a modified search-engine results page to be generated, the modified search-engine results page comprising results that correspond to attributes of the web page.