Browser activity replay with advanced navigation

• US 9,936,034 B1
• Filed: 08/16/2017
• Issued: 04/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2015
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Brooks, Damie L., Maddali, Lalith K., Punjabi, Manoj, Singh, Sukhbir
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Faber, David
• Application Number:
  US15/678,575
• Publication Number:
  US 20180097898A1
• Time in Patent Office: 230 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/34 Recording or statistical evaluation of computer activity, e.g. of down time, of input/output operation ; Recording or statistical evaluation of user activity, e.g. usability assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3414 Workload generation, e.g. scripts, playback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9562 Bookmark management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Aspects include capturing and replaying activities conducted during a web browsing session. Activities conducted by a user via browser application at a website are received at a computer processor. The activities occur across multiple web pages and span multiple windows during a single browsing session. The activities associated with corresponding web pages, and the activities are ordered in chronological order for each of the web pages. User interface events corresponding to the ordered activities are displayed via a browser based interface. The user interface events are selectable by an end user of the browser based interface.

Claims

1. A computer program product for capturing and replaying activities conducted during a web browsing session, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to:

receive activities conducted by a user via a browser application at a website, the activities occurring across multiple web pages and spanning multiple windows and multiple tabs across the multiple web pages during a single browsing session,

wherein the activities include scrolling through a web page, selecting a tab, selecting a link on the web page, advancing to a different web page, returning to a previous web page, logging into the web site, logging out of the web site, entering data into a form, and creating a message, and

wherein the receiving includes receiving messages including timestamps and load and unload events associated with the activities, each timestamp indicating when a corresponding activity occurred and the load and unload events indicating loading and unloading of the web pages;

associate the activities with corresponding web pages at least in part by associating the activities spanning the multiple tabs with corresponding tabs;

order the activities in chronological order for each of the web pages based on the corresponding timestamps;

display user interface events corresponding to the ordered activities in a navigation list via the browser based interface, wherein the user interface events are selectable by an end user of the browser based interface, and wherein displaying the user interface events comprises displaying the load and unload events in chronological order of occurrence;

receive a selection of a user interface event; and

after receiving the selection of the user interface event;

determine, by the browser based interface, a number of active windows at the time the activities were captured, the determining implemented by traversing upward in the navigation list and identifying all load messages that do not have matching unload messages; and

create hypertext markup language (HTML) popup windows with iframes pointing to a most recent replay of each active window; and

overlaying the popup windows on top of each other with an ordered index of the popup windows to indicate most recent activities on each active window.