Principals and methods for balancing the timeliness of communications and information delivery with the expected cost of interruption via deferral policies

• US 20070004385A1
• Filed: 06/29/2005
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric, Achlioptas, Dimitris
• Granted Patent: US 7,529,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/414.100
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages

Abstract

A system is provided that facilitates information processing of a user. The system includes an analyzer to automatically determine one or more states of a user'"'"'s availability based on patterns of the user'"'"'s interruptability. A deferral component generates or forwards messages or alerts to the user in accordance with a cost-minimization analysis and determined availability. For example, the deferral component can process interrupts to the user and determine at least one of optimal and approximately optimal deferral times in which to direct an information item to the user, the information item is one of an email message, an incoming phone call, a push-to-talk message, an instant message, an alert, and requests, offers of assistance, status or error reports, or a task from another application or autonomous system.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates information processing, comprising:

an analyzer that automatically determines a user state relating to a user'"'"'s availability based at least in part upon patterns of the user'"'"'s interruptability; and

a deferral component that determines a bounded deferral period to deliver an information item to the user in accordance with the user'"'"'s availability.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a log that records interruption patterns of a user over time, the log records data from local and/or remote network locations, and the interruption patterns include determining availability, unavailability, busyness, application activity, user activity, subject matter being worked on, type or numbers of tasks processed, times of busyness, and times when email or voice mail are processed.

3. The system of claim 2, the analyzer processes data from a database via one or more models that are employed to determine and predict user busyness states including when it would be of lower cost to interrupt the user versus periods of higher cost when the user is focused on other tasks.

4. The system of claim 1, the deferral component processes interrupts to the user and determines at least one of optimal and approximately optimal deferral times in which to direct the information item to the user, the information item is one of an email message, a phone message, an instant message, an alert, and a task from another application.

5. The system of claim 1, a maximal deferral time is determined based at least in part on one or more of an exact and approximate minimization of a net expected cost to the user both of delay and of interruption, the net expected cost of delay and the net expected cost of interruption scaled to a substantially similar scale.

6. The system of claim 5, the maximal deferral time (t) is determined via one of an ideal and approximate minimization of the following formula:

W(t)=(c+f(t))g(t)+∫

₀−

g′

(s)f(s)ds,

where W(t) is a total expected cost;

g(t) describes a probability that the user will be busy after waiting up until the maximal deferral time t;

f(t) is a loss in the value of seeing the information item, relative to an initial value of reviewing the information item when it arrives, when reviewing the information item at the maximal deferral time t;

f(s) is a loss of value of the information item at times s that the user might become available before the maximal deferral time t under uncertainty, and c is a cost of interruption if the user is busy.

7. The system of claim 1, the analyzer at least one of couples alerting and cost models for when to engage a user from a particular interrupt with considerations of the user'"'"'s current workload and applies decision-theoretic components to weigh cost of interrupting the user versus benefits of notifying the user at a given time.

8. The system of claim 1, the analyzer applies bounded deferral policies to resolve notifying users from interrupts that are potential candidates for gaining the user'"'"'s present or near term attention.

9. The system of claim 1, the analyzer employs models that learn patterns including one or more of the user'"'"'s interests, the user'"'"'s attention modes at given times, and the user'"'"'s preference for a particular type message.

10. The system of claim 9, the models include at least one of Hidden Markov Models, Bayesian networks and other probabilistic graphical models, naï

ve Bayesian classifiers, Support Vector Machines (SVMs), neural networks, and logical rules models.

11. The system of claim 10, the models receive data from one or more of a plurality of local and remote data sources including at least one of a cell phone, a microphone, a Global Positioning System (GPS), an electronic calendar, a vision monitoring system, a desktop computer, and a web site.

12. The system of claim 1, the analyzer calculates a first measure of cost associated with delaying deliverance of the information item until the user is associated with a disparate state.

13. The system of claim 12, the deferral component compares the first measure of cost with a second measure of cost associated with cost of delaying deliverance of the information item at a specified time and delivers the information item to the user based at least in part upon the comparison.

14. A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for implementing the components of claim 1.

15. A method that facilitates sending notifications to a user, comprising:

monitoring a user'"'"'s activities over time;

constructing at least one model from the activities to determine a predicted busyness state for the user; and

automatically deferring a received information item based at least in part on the predicted busyness state of the user.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising constructing at least one of a priorities model, a policy model, a cost model, a bounded-deferral model, and a derivative model to determine the busyness state for the user.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising analyzing at least one of a session input, an attentional load factor, a user status, a threshold control, and a preference setting to determine the busyness state of the user.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising deferring interruption of a user with at least one of potentially time urgent messages, inquiries, and communications, including the relay of email messaging, instant messaging, alerts, incoming telephone calls, utterances sent via a push-to-talk communication system, error messages, inquiries to the user from autonomous systems, and advice to the user from autonomous systems.

19. A computer-implemented message deferral system, comprising:

means for calculating a first measure of cost associated with unbounded deferral of deliverance of an information item;

means for calculating a bounded deferral time;

means for calculating a second measure of cost associated with the bounded deferral time;

means for comparing the first measure of cost with the second measure of cost; and

means for determining whether to deliver the information item at the bounded deferral time based at least in part upon the comparison.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

means for determining a busyness state of a user; and

means for determining the first measure of cost and the second measure of cost based at least in part upon the determined busyness state.