Visualization of Internet search information

Details Visualization of Internet search information Visualization of Internet search information

1999-04-16

2002-08-13

Corrielus, Jean M. (Department: 2172)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C345S215000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06434556

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a method and system for presenting a visual representation of information on a computer system. More particularly, the present invention provides a method and system for effective human visual comprehension of search results relating to information available on the Internet.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
With the development of the modem computer system, a massive volume of information may be readily stored, accessed and analyzed. Improvements in mass information storage media and development of new types of mass storage media now allow individuals to access millions of pages of information. Through networks of computers, an individual can further increase the volume of accessible information millions of times.
The Internet, rapidly increasing in popularity and usage, allows millions of users around the world access to the information on a network of millions of computers. The World Wide Web of the Internet is one of the most popular sources of Internet information and represents a collection of hundreds of millions of pages of information stored on millions of computers throughout the world. With low-cost and user-friendly software, even novice computer users are able to easily organize their own set of information which can be accessible by others over the World Wide Web of the Internet. Many of the pages of information on the Internet also include addresses or “links” to other pages of information that may be readily accessed upon a single and simple click of a button, which could interconnect the user with information residing on a computer system on the other side of the world, or maybe even just next door. Although presently most of the information available on the Internet is textual in nature, accessible also are massive amounts of information in which digitized images, sounds and video are stored.
Never in the history of man has there been a time when such a massive volume of information could be readily accessed by individual users. On the Internet, this information can be accessed at virtually no or little cost. However, without tools to assist users to efficiently search and comprehend the information available, this great resource of information may be largely wasted. Attempting to locate a particular subset of information of interest can be an overwhelmingly time-consuming and frustrating task. No common system of organization is followed for information available on the Internet and, since it is assembled by a diverse set of users all with different backgrounds and views, it seems unlikely that Internet information will ever be regulated by information providers for effective organization.
Recognizing the need for allowing users to search through the massive amount of information available on the Internet, a variety of commercial Internet information indexing services have been implemented, such as Yahoo, Lycos, InfoSeek, Excite and Alta Vista. Although the search algorithms and techniques used (also referred to as “search engines”) are likely quite different for each of such services, the format of the information presented to a user located as a result of a search are relatively similar. Conventional search engines, after conducting the search, present the user with a list of “hits,” each of which typically provides an address or link to allow a user to access the information and perhaps a short description of the information available. In many instances, a user will be presented with a list of thousands, hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of “hits” with perhaps only a few of interest to the user. Due to the nature of the search conducted, many conventional search engines provide results that include duplicates, which further frustrates the ability of the user to efficiently locate the information of interest. For example, a search engine may attempt to search the Internet for sites that include the term “cuisine”. However, if the term is used multiple times in an available document, many conventional search engines will include a “hit” for each occurrence of the term within a document.
In order to assist a user with navigation through the list of “hits,” some conventional search engines attempt to rank the hits using a predetermined algorithm in an effort to estimate the relevance of each of the hits. The hits that are determined to be most relevant are placed at the top of the list, while those that are determined to be least relevant are placed at the bottom of the list. Although such a relevance ranking is sometimes useful, in practice, a user is frequently presented with many duplicate hits referring to the same information and the relevance ranking is not sophisticated so many of the hits are classified with the same ranking, presenting the user with a list of perhaps thousands of hits all of which are indicated as being of equal relevance.
These prior art techniques for searching and presenting the search results are not effective in conveying information to the user in a manner that allows the user to efficiently comprehend the volume, relevance and organization of the information located from a search. This is particularly true with respect to a search of information available on the Internet, an information source of almost unimaginable volume and inconsistent organization.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,740 to Rose et al. assigned to Apple Computer, Inc., discloses a method and system for improving the ranking of information retrieval results for short queries. Techniques such as this are directed to providing a more sophisticated technique for estimating the relevance of information located from a search. The Rose et al. invention attempts to improve estimated relevance determination by taking into account the degree of overlap between query terms and the terms of a located document, the query length and a “boosting” factor. Although the Rose et al. invention might improve the estimated relevancy ranking to some extent, it fails to recognize other potentially important factors of relevancy, and does not provide a suitable solution to allow a user to efficiently comprehend the results of a broad search that returned many hits. In other words, as illustrated in
FIG. 5
, the Rose et al. invention is representative of prior art techniques that present search result information in linear lists, a format that is particularly easy for a computer to generate but is ineffective in assisting a user in navigating and understanding the results.
A system has been proposed by Jeromy Carriere and Rick Kazman in a paper entitled “Webquery: Searching and Visualizing the Web through Connectivity.” Although this paper suggests that search results may be presented visually, it does not propose a technique that may be practically implemented for the massive volume of information available from the Internet. Carriere and Kazman propose a “spider” (a program that “visits” each document or “site” within the search space where information may be located) to precompile a database containing information regarding the connectivity of data in the search space. This connectivity database is then consulted as a factor affecting relevancy of search results. The proposed technique was implemented with respect to the Internet World Wide Web sites of the University of Waterloo, a very small subset of the entire World Wide Web. The technique required the “spider” to collect information from the 200,000 sites at the University of Waterloo. Attempting to construct and maintain such a precompiled database of connectivity information is unmanageable for the entire World Wide Web because the dynamic nature of the information available and the sheer volume of information would make it impossible to complete the precompilation task for all the information available on the Internet.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a system and method that may be readily implemented for the entire volume of information available on the Internet for efficient searching for information and a visual presentation of search

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