Coordinated Related-Search Feedback That Assists Search Refinement

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/684,817, entitled “Coordinated Related-Search Feedback that Assists Search Refinement” filed on 26 May 2005 by Mark Silverberg, Ar Jennifer Wells. That application is incorporated by reference for all purposes.

[0002] This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/289,123, “Responding To End-User Request For Information In A Computer Network”, by inventors E. Veteska, David L. Goulden, and Anthony G. Martin, filed on 5 Nov. 2002 and Ser. No. 10/815,112, “System and Method for Responding to Search Requests in a Computer Network” by inventors Remigiusz Paczkowski, et al., filed on 31 Mar. 2004. The related applications are incorporated by reference.

[0003] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The copyrighted material includes the source code appendix.

[0004] The present invention relates to displaying coordinated related-search feedback in a single display, to help a user develop, refine and select a useful search. In particular, it relates to conducting a plurality of related searches and making the results simultaneously available to the user in a coordinated display.

[0005] Search engines index various collections. Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista and others index the web. Google desktop, dtSearch, operating system utilities and others index workstations and network drives. Larger and larger document collections are available to search. This taxes both the relevancy ranking performed by the search engines and the search formulation skill of the users.

[0006] The larger a collection, the harder it is to search and review search results. In searching technology, the trade-off between search breadth and review time is characterized in terms of recall and precision. A broad search recalls more desired results than a narrow search, but with reduced precision, as the broad search produces many irrelevant results. Thesauruses have been offered to make sure that users don't miss relevant search terms, to increase recall, but larger result sets have reduced precision, requiring more review time. Proximity searches (e.g., Dialog and Lexis) and set operations (e.g., Dialog) enable users to refine searches based on prior results, adjusting both recall and precision. On the search result display side, relevance rankings strategies have been developed to bring results that seem most precisely responsive to the searches to the top of the display list.

[0007] An opportunity arises to further improve on technologies that assist users in understanding the results of their searches and refining their inquires. Better, more easily reviewed searches with improved recognition of relevant search results and reduced review time may result.

[0008] The present invention relates to displaying coordinated related-search feedback in a single display, to help a user develop, refine and select a useful search. In particular, it relates to conducting a plurality of related searches and making the results simultaneously available to the user in a coordinated display. Particular aspects of the present invention are described in the claims, specification and drawings.

[0009] FIGS. 1-3 depict alternative coordinated related-search displays. FIGS. 1-2 show a side-by-side display, within a single browser window, of two or more related searches. FIG. 3 shows a layered, tab-accessible collection of related searches.

[0010] FIGS. 4-6 are high level block diagrams of middleware and search engine implementations of coordinated displays. In FIGS. 4-5, middleware presents the user with a search window and coordinated related-search feedback. FIG. 6 depicts adding coordinated related-search feedback capabilities to a search engine.

[0011] The following detailed description is made with reference to the figures. Preferred embodiments are described to illustrate the present invention, not to limit its scope, which is defined by the claims. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize a variety of equivalent variations on the description that follows.

[0012] Coordinated related-search feedback assists users in refining their searches and in selecting among alternative searches with similar results. Related searches may be user or machine generated. Users generated modified searches when they are not satisfied with their query. Sometimes, users invoke a term thesaurus to broaden the recall of a search, in a search technology-assisted related-search. Other times, the search technology may include a search thesaurus (as opposed to a term thesaurus) that has been configured and trained based on aggregated intelligence of numerous users or advertisers. Either observing users, who are refining their searches, or observing advertisers, who study users'search patterns, there is abundant data from which to construct a search thesaurus and deliver to a user some of the aggregated intelligence of prior searchers. In many ways, users and search technologies combine to generate related searches.

[0013] Coordinated related-search feedback provides an orderly presentation of multiple result sets in a single active window. “Single active window” is meant in this context to mean an active window under control of a single instance of an application program, for instance, a single browser instance. This single active window can span multiple monitors or make take less than a whole monitor to display. An orderly presentation can include sizing and positioning of areas in the active window for the related search result sets. It can include giving the user a choice among pre-configured system or user-selected views, or user configured workspaces. Coordinated feedback frees the user of opening multiple browsers instances and then sizing and positioning the browser windows.

[0014] Coordinated related-search feedback also can extend to indicating the degree of similarity between the related searches. Emphasis, such as color-coding, highlighting, bullets, flashing or the like, can indicate overlap (or differences) between search result sets. The overlap can be in entire result sets, in the result sets being displayed, or in a selected size of result sets, such as the 10, 20, 50 or 100 most relevant results of a search. Overlapping results may be given a separate display area, effectively creating result sets A, B and A I B, with the intersection corresponding to a one of several alternative meanings of overlap.

[0015] Another option is to create a differences set, (A Y B)-(A I B), with coding to indicate which search produced items in the differences set. As with the overlaps set, differences can be in entire result sets, in the result sets being displayed, or in a selected size of result sets, such as the 10, 20, 50 or 100 most relevant results of a search.

[0016] Coordinated feedback allows the user to modify one of the related searches while keeping other searches and result sets. If search B seems more promising than search A, the user can refine search A based on learning from the results of search B. Or, vice-versa. A set of related searches, either user generated or search technology suggested, can be tracked and made available to the user for selection. The user can select multiple searches and display the search results or the overlap in or differences between the search results of the selected searches.

[0017] FIGS. 1-3 depict alternative coordinated related-search displays. FIGS. 1-2 show a side-by-side display, within a single active window, of two or more related searches. FIG. 3 shows a layered, tab-accessible collection of related searches.

[0018] In FIG. 1, two search results 124, 134 appear side-by-side. The user need not size and position the search results, as they appear in a single coordinated display 100 that may have default, user-selectable view arrangements or user configurable workspace arrangements. These results could, alternatively, be positioned top-and-bottom. In FIG. 1, the single active window 100 includes a title area 110 and two or more search and result areas 120, 130. The search and result areas are similarly organized. Word links 121 support user selection of a search domain. A text entry window 122 and search button support user entry of the search to be displayed below. The text entry window and button may be mirrored 126 at the bottom of the active window, usefully so when a user selects a large number of results (e.g., 100) results for a display page so there is a significant distance between the top and bottom. Sponsored links 123 are included in the active window along with unsponsored search results 124. Navigation aids are provided 125 for reviewing the result set. The active window could include more than two results placed side-by-side. The active window also could include a search overlap and/or differences display area, positioned side-by-side with the search results, above or below the side-by-side results, or selectable by a single user action to replace (or toggle back-and-forth with) the side-by-side display. Alternatively, overlaps and/or differences could be pushed to the top or bottom of the respective lists, segregated within each result set.

[0019] Ordering within the search overlap area may be based on ordering of one of the searches or an averaged ordering of the related searches, when a separate search overlap area is provided, either side-by-side (FIG. 1) or layered (FIG. 3). Ordering within a search differences area may be based on orderings of the individual result sets, a metric of relevance or coding the particular results to the result sets by segregating them, either within a result set or in a separate differences area. In general, the coordination of results allows the search technology to help the user learn about the similarities and/or differences in the result sets by coding individual results, either in a separate active window area or in line, supplementing entries in one or more search result areas.

[0020] The coordinated related-search display can process the results and code them. The rank of a particular result in each of the related searches optionally can be numerically or graphically indicated, such as 2/15, for second and fifteenth in the related searches, or ****/**, or indicated by color-coded symbols, such as a red figure and a green figure, either adjacent to each other or concentric. Lines could be used to connect a result that appears in both result sets. For lines extending off-screen, one or more arrowheads could used to indicate how far off-screen the connected result appears.

[0021] FIG. 2 depicts alternative positioning of the search domain selection 221 and searches 222, 232 in an area 210 above the result sets 220, 230. Searches positioned in this way remain visible as the user scrolls through the result sets 220, 230.

[0022] In FIG. 3, the user toggles among search result sets by selecting a tab 342, much as users select among spreadsheet workbook sheets or among documents open in a word processor. A user can select a tab to display or create an overlap 351 or differences 352 set. FIG. 3 depicts a title area 310 that includes word links to search domains and a search text entry window corresponding to the currently active tab. A results summary area 315 describes the status of the current result set. Related search terms can be listed as word links 341, mirroring the tabs 342 and allowing wrapping, in case the tabs 342 extend off-screen, due to the number of related searches in progress. Controls are provided for the user to generate an overlap results set 351 or a differences result set 352. Optionally, the user may be allowed to annotate or rename a tab, to supplement a name assigned by the search technology reflecting the search terms.

[0023] FIGS. 4-6 are high level block diagrams of middleware and search engine implementations of coordinated displays. hi FIGS. 4-5, middleware 421, 523 presents the user with a search window and coordinated related-search feedback. Middleware with a routine resident on the user's system 421 may implemented as a search bar. Middleware resident on a server 523, such as a proxy server, also may present a search screen. In either embodiment, the middleware conducts two or more search sessions with related but different searches and feeds the results into so called side-by-side frames or layering buffers and gives the user the option of toggling among search results of the layered display. The middleware may optionally transmit net active window dimensions to the search engine, in lieu of describing the full browser window dimensions, so that the search engine can populated the result set window in a user-friendly format. The middleware may reserve annotation areas on the active window, so that it can annotate search entries as described above, without varying the displayed content of the search results.

[0024] Technically, middleware also could move sponsored links to their own area of the active window (e.g., 343 in FIG. 3). This would preserve the search engine's advertising revenue, while reasonably allocating active window area. This may be useful, because resizing the width of some search engines' results windows does not narrow the column width allocated to sponsored links; only the result set display is narrowed. This looks awkward when little width is left over after displaying the sponsored links. One who implements ad-shifting technology would need to be cognizant of copyright issues.

[0025] In each of FIGS. 4-6, a browser 410, network 411 and search engine instances 430 are depicted. Technical components needed to produce coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window are variously located, on the user's machine 421, at a proxy server 523 or as part of the search engine 622.

[0026] FIG. 6 depicts adding coordinated related-search feedback capabilities 622 to a search engine. The search engine conducts two parallel searches and merges the results. A merge component formats the merged results. A hidden field or search URL can be returned with the merged results to conform to HTML conventions for maintaining state information. A user interaction component manages the user interaction and user selections.

[0027] The present invention may be practiced as a method or device adapted to practice the method. The same method can be viewed from the perspective of the user experience or the technical component that merges multiple search results into a single active window. The invention may be an article of manufacture such as media impressed with logic to carry out coordinated related-search feedback.

[0028] One embodiment is a coordinated method of providing related-search feedback to a user that facilitates search refinement. This method includes querying a document database with two or more related searches and displaying two or more result sets including document identifiers and documents snippets from responsive results for the related searches in a single active window. In this context, documents include one or more of files on disk, web pages, images or news articles. Document identifiers may be names of documents or links to the documents. Documents snippets may be summaries or excerpts of text or thumbnails of images.

[0029] A further aspect of this embodiment includes accepting a user-defined search, automatically proposing to the user one or more related searches and accepting a user selection among the proposed related searches.

[0030] A coordinated display may include displaying two or more result sets side-by-side in the single active window or displaying two or more result sets above-and-below one another.

[0031] This embodiment further may include determining overlap between the two or more result sets and visually coding particular results to reflect the overlap. Coding may be applied to the particular results that overlap or to the results that do not overlap. The coding may include one or more of color-coding, highlighting or text animation. Alternatively, coding may be by physical segregation between coded and uncoded results. The coded results may be separated into a separate coded results set and displayed as an additional result set in the single active window. Coded results may be removed from the initial result sets for purposes of display. Alternatively, coded results may be segregated within a result set from uncoded results and moved to the top or bottom of the active window. Overlap may be determined from entire result sets, selected sizes of result sets or from displayed portions of result sets.

[0032] Another aspect of this embodiment may include rank coding particular results in a coded result set to indicate the ranking of the particular results in the two or more initial result sets. The ranking may use numbers, symbols or color-coded icons

[0033] This first method embodiment may be implemented as a computer device running middleware. The device includes memory, a processor coupled to the memory, and logic and resources operative on the processor adapted to communicate two or more related searches, to receive result sets from the search engine and provide the result sets to be displayed according to the embodiments of aspects of embodiments described above.

[0034] Alternatively, the implementing device may be a search engine device. This device includes memory, a processor coupled to the memory, and logic and resources operative on the processor adapted to receive two or more related searches from a particular user, compose a coordinated display of results from the related searches and provide the coordinated display of result sets to the particular user to be displayed in accordance with the embodiments and aspects of embodiments described above.

[0035] The embodiments described above may be modified to provide layered, coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window. This modified embodiment displays results set selectors that allow a user to select in a single user action a result set to display. Displaying includes displaying document identifiers and snippets from a plurality of responsive results, generally as described above. Again, the method embodiment may be practiced as a computer device running middleware, the middleware resident on the user's machine or a proxy server, or as a technical component of a search engine.

[0036] While the present invention is disclosed by reference to the preferred embodiments and examples detailed above, it is understood that these examples are intended in an illustrative rather than in a limiting sense. Computer-assisted processing is implicated in the described embodiments. Accordingly, the present invention may be embodied in methods of providing coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window, systems including logic and resources to provide coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window, systems that take advantage of computer-assisted coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window media impressed with logic to provide coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window data streams impressed with logic to provide coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window or computer-accessible services that provide coordinated related-search feedback in a single active window. It is contemplated that modifications and combinations will readily occur to those skilled in the art, which modifications and combinations will be within the spirit of the invention and the scope of the following claims.