Systems and methods for providing a tailored user interface associated with a web page

• US 9,400,850 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2011
• Issued: 07/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Roberts, Brian F., Stettner, Armando P.
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Jennifer
• Assistant Examiner(s): Burwell, Joseph R
• Application Number:
  US13/149,324
• Publication Number:
  US 20120311470A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,883 Days
• Field of Search: 715/763, 715/760
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42218 for mapping a matrix of displayed objects on the screen to the numerical key-matrix of the remote control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV

Abstract

Exemplary systems and methods for providing a tailored user interface associated with a web page are disclosed. An exemplary method includes a user interface computing system identifying, from computing code representative of a web page and based on a predefined element selection heuristic, one or more select elements of the web page and generating a user interface including data representative of the one or more select elements for display on a display screen, the user interface having a presentation scheme that is different from a presentation scheme of the web page and that is tailored to facilitate interaction with the data representative of the one or more select elements by a user utilizing a set of user inputs. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying, by a user interface computing system from computing code representative of a web page and based on a predefined element selection heuristic, one or more select elements of the web page, the one or more select elements of the web page including a link element of the web page;

generating, by the user interface computing system, a user interface including data representative of the one or more select elements for display on a display screen, the user interface having a presentation scheme that is different from a presentation scheme of the web page and that is tailored to facilitate interaction with the data representative of the one or more select elements including the link element by a user utilizing a set of user inputs that are positioned on a surface of a television remote control device, the tailored user interface including a graphical depiction of only a subset of the set of user inputs that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device, the graphical depiction of the subset comprising a graphical depiction of each of a plurality of directional arrow buttons and a selection button that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device;

providing, by the user interface computing system, an actual rendering of the web page to a display device for display on a display screen, wherein the actual rendering of the web page includes each of the identified one or more select elements arranged at their respective native positions within the actual rendering of the web page; and

providing, by the user interface computing system, the tailored user interface to the display device for display together with the actual rendering of the web page on the display screen.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more select elements comprise a subset of elements of the web page.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the tailored user interface does not include at least one of a structural property, an appearance property, and a style property of the web page.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data representative of the one or more select elements included in the tailored user interface comprises at least one of graphical and functional copies of the one or more select elements of the web page.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the data representative of the one or more select elements included in the tailored user interface comprises a menu of one or more shortcuts to content accessible by way of the one or more select elements of the web page and including the content accessible by way of the link element.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the content accessible by way of the one or more select elements of the web page comprises at least one of media content and one or more other web pages.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

detecting, by the user interface computing system, a user selection of a shortcut included in the menu of shortcuts and representative of the link element; and

accessing, by the user interface computing system in response to the user selection, the content accessible by way of the link element.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing code representative of the web page comprises markup language code.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying further comprises:

parsing the computing code representative of the web page to detect elements of the web page; and

selecting, from the detected elements of the web page and based on the predefined element selection heuristic, the one or more select elements of the web page for inclusion in the tailored user interface.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the predefined element selection heuristic specifies one or more conditions to be used by the user interface computing system to identify the one or more select elements from elements of the web page.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more conditions specify one or more types of web page elements to be selected by the user interface computing system for inclusion in the tailored user interface.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more types of web page elements comprise at least one of navigational elements and media content link elements.

13. The method of claim 1, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the television remote control device controls at least one of a television device, a set-top box device, and a digital video recording device.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more select elements further include an embedded interactive element that comprises an embedded media player element.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the one or more select elements of the web page further includes accessing information associated with the link element by following the link element and determining a type of the link element based on the content accessible by way of the link element.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the generating of the user interface further includes generating a text descriptor for the link element based on the determined type of the link element.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the identifying of the one or more select elements of the web page further includes following the link element to access descriptive information associated with the link element; and

the generating of the user interface further includes generating a text descriptor for the link element based on the accessed descriptive information, the text descriptor descriptive of content accessible by way of the link element.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein:

the link element included in the web page is represented by text; and

the generating of the user interface further includes replacing the text representing the link element in the web page with the text descriptor in the user interface.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the text descriptor includes more descriptive information regarding the link element than is provided by the text representing the link element in the web page.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein a presentation order of each of the identified one or more select elements included within the actual rendering of the web page matches a presentation order of the data representative of the one or more select elements included in the tailored user interface.

22. A method comprising:

accessing, by a user interface computing system, computing code representative of a display page;

parsing, by the user interface computing system, the computing code representative of the display page to detect elements of the display page;

selecting, by the user interface computing system from the detected elements of the display page, one or more select elements of the display page, the one or more select elements of the display page including a link element of the display page, the selecting of the one or more select elements of the display page including accessing information associated with the link element;

generating, by the user interface computing system, a user interface including data representative of the one or more select elements, the user interface having a presentation scheme that is different from a presentation scheme of the display page and that is tailored to facilitate interaction with the data representative of the one or more select elements including the link element by a user utilizing a set of user inputs that are positioned on a surface of a television remote control device, the generating of the tailored user interface further including generating a text descriptor for the link element based on the accessed information, the text descriptor descriptive of content accessible by way of the link element, the tailored user interface including a graphical depiction of only a subset of the set of user inputs that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device, the graphical depiction of the subset comprising a graphical depiction of each of a plurality of directional arrow buttons and a selection button that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device;

providing, by the user interface computing system, an actual rendering of the display page to a display device for display on a display screen, wherein the actual rendering of the display page includes each of the selected one or more select elements of the display page arranged at their respective native positions within the actual rendering of the web page;

providing, by the user interface computing system, the tailored user interface to the display device for display together with the actual rendering of the display page on the display screen;

detecting, by the user interface computing system, a user interaction associated with the text descriptor included in the tailored user interface; and

accessing, by the user interface computing system in response to the user interaction, the content accessible by way of the link element.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the display page comprises a web page.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the tailored user interface does not include at least one of a structural property, an appearance property, and a style property of the display page.

25. The method of claim 22, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

26. A system comprising:

at least one physical computing device including a processor;

an element selection facility that is communicatively coupled to the processor and that directs the processor to identify, from computing code representative of a web page and based on a predefined element selection heuristic, one or more select elements of the web page, the one or more select elements of the web page including a link element of the web page; and

a user interface facility that is communicatively coupled to the element selection facility and that directs the processor to

generate a user interface including data representative of the one or more select elements for display on a display screen, the user interface having a presentation scheme that is different from a presentation scheme of the web page and that is tailored to facilitate interaction with the data representative of the one or more select elements including the link element by a user utilizing a set of user inputs that are positioned on a surface of a television remote control device, the tailored user interface including a graphical depiction of only a subset of the set of user inputs that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device, the graphical depiction of the subset comprising a graphical depiction of each of a plurality of directional arrow buttons and a selection button that are positioned on the surface of the television remote control device;

provide an actual rendering of the web page to a display device for display on a display screen, the actual rendering of the web page including each of the one or more select elements arranged at their respective native positions within the actual rendering of the web page; and

provide the tailored user interface to the display device for display together with the actual rendering of the web page on the display screen.

27. A method comprising:

identifying, by a user interface computing system from computing code representative of a web page and based on a predefined element selection heuristic specifying at least one element type condition, one or more select elements of the web page that are of at least one type indicated by the at least one element type condition;

generating, by the user interface computing system, a user interface including data representative of the one or more select elements for display on a display screen, the user interface having a presentation scheme that is different from a presentation scheme of the web page and that is tailored to facilitate interaction with the data representative of the one or more select elements by a user utilizing a set of user inputs positioned on a surface of a remote control device associated with a content access device, the tailored user interface including a graphical depiction of only a subset of the set of user inputs that are positioned on the surface of the remote control device, the graphical depiction of the subset comprising a graphical depiction of each of a plurality of directional arrow buttons and a selection button that are positioned on the surface of the remote control device; and

displaying, by the user interface computing system, an actual rendering of the web page according to the presentation scheme of the web page together with the user interface on a television display device, the actual rendering of the web page including each of the identified one or more select elements currently displayed in the web page and arranged at their respective native positions within the actual rendering of the web page, the displaying of the user interface including positioning the user interface adjacent to the actual rendering of the web page on the television display device and including displaying each of the identified one or more select elements of the at least one type indicated by the at least one element type condition specified by the predefined element selection heuristic, the identified one or more select elements included in the user interface selectable by the user of the remote control device via a graphical selector displayed in the user interface.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the graphical selector is configured to be moved between the one or more select elements in the display of the user interface based on user input via a directional pad on the remote control device.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein the one or more select elements of the web page of the at least one type include at least one of a navigational element, an embedded media player element, a primary navigational element, and a non-primary navigational element.