Electronic documents are prepared by one or more authors to contain content such as text, spreadsheets, slides, diagrams, charts, and images.
In some cases, authors use informal processes—such as manually generating email requests—to seek feedback on the documents they prepare, such as editorial feedback on the message; grammar feedback on the writing; style feedback on the visual appearance; audience suitability feedback; publication authorization; legal clearance; etc.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to identify key factors or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.
A facility for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document is described. The facility receives first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers. The facility obtains feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers. The facility causes a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author, and receives second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed. In response to receiving the second input, the facility obtains feedback on the document from each of a second group of identified prospective reviewers that is distinct from the first group.
The inventors have recognized that conventional informal approaches used by authors to seek feedback on an electronic document (hereafter simply a “document”) have significant disadvantages. A first disadvantage identified by the inventors is that the author must typically do the following things manually, on an ad hoc basis: identify prospective reviewers; prepare and send an email message or other communication to each of the prospective reviewers; and aggregate feedback received from some or all of the prospective reviewers. A second disadvantage identified by the inventors is that it often turns out to be true that the number of prospective reviewers who respond with feedback differs meaningfully from what turns out to be, in the final analysis, the ideal number of respondents; in this situation, conventionally the author must manually prepare and send solicitations to additional prospective reviewers (if not enough reviewers have responded), or manually identify responding reviewers whose feedback is to be discarded or disregarded (if too many reviewers have responded).
In response to this recognition, the inventors have conceived and reduced to practice a software and/or hardware facility (“the facility”) for automatically or semi-automatically adapting feedback received on a document.
In some embodiments, the facility permits an author to provide information about feedback desired on a document, including, for example: one or more types of feedback desired; for each type of feedback, the number of people from whom this type of feedback is desired, and any qualifications that a person providing this type of feedback should have, such as certain skills, expertise, or certifications, certain kinds of authority within an organization, certain connections to the author, etc. In some embodiments, the author can explicitly identify prospective reviewers for any of the categories, though in some embodiments, where the author does not explicitly identify prospective reviewers or identifies an inadequate number, the facility automatically identifies prospective reviewers. In some embodiments, the facility automatically generates and sends communications to the identified prospective reviewers soliciting their assistance to provide the desired type(s) of feedback. The facility collects the feedback as it is provided by reviewers.
In one example, the author of a “January Status Memo” document provides information indicating that she desires a single type of feedback on the document, notes on whether the document should be revised. She further specifies that, as a qualification, reviewers should be members of a particular management team, and that feedback is desired from five people. In response, the facility generates and sends feedback solicitations to eight people.
In some semi-automatic embodiments, the facility presents to the author a representation of the feedback collected from reviewers, such as by displaying the feedback itself, a summary of the feedback, account of the reviewers providing feedback, etc. With this representation of the feedback, the facility presents a control that the author can operate to adjust the amount of feedback. The author can move the control in a first direction, such as to the left or counter-clockwise, in order to reduce the amount of feedback; the author can move the control in a second direction, such as to the right or clockwise, in order to increase the amount of feedback. In some embodiments, by moving the control to different degrees, the author can reduce or increase the amount of feedback to different extents. When the author operates the control to reduce the amount of feedback, the facility filters the feedback received from reviewers, removing feedback inferred to be the least relevant or helpful, such as by removing feedback received from reviewers that least satisfy reviewer qualifications specified by the author; removing feedback received from reviewers furthest from the author in a relevant social or organizational graph; removing feedback judged on helpful based upon natural language processing and size or natural language understanding; etc. When the author operates the control to increase the amount of feedback, in various embodiments, the facility takes various approaches, such as sending solicitations to additional prospective reviewers; sending already-solicited prospective reviewers who have not responded a message with different content; sending already-solicited prospective reviewers who have not responded a message the different communication channel; etc.
To extend the example in accordance with the semi-automatic embodiments described above, the facility receives notes feedback from four of the eight people to whom solicitations were sent, and displays a list of this notes feedback. The facility also displays a slider control that the author can drag to the left to reduce the amount of feedback by filtering out feedback likely to be least relevant, or drag to the right to increase the amount of feedback. In this case, the author drags the slider control to the right to increase the amount of feedback. In response, the facility sends solicitations to 10 more people; receives feedback from five of them; and displays a list of feedback that includes the feedback received from the original four reviewers together with the feedback received from the additional five reviewers. At this point, the author can again manipulate the slider control to further adjust the amount of feedback.
In some embodiments that are more automatic, the facility itself compares the number of people from whom feedback was collected to the number of people from whom feedback was desired by the author, and automatically takes action to reduce or increase the amount of feedback, such as in the ways described above.
To extend the example in accordance with the more automatic embodiments described above, the facility receives notes feedback from four of the people to whom solicitations were sent. The facility determines that this feedback from four people falls below the number of people from which the author desires feedback, and sends solicitations to three additional people. When the facility receives feedback from all of these three additional people, and determines that the feedback it now has from seven people exceeds the number of people from which the author desires feedback, the facility filters the feedback by removing the feedback from the two people for the furthest from the author in the relevant organizational graph. The facility then presents the remaining feedback from five people.
In some embodiments, where a document has a single author, that author can use the facility to adapt feedback received for the document. In some embodiments, where a document has multiple authors, any or all of the authors can use the facility to adapt feedback received for the document. In various embodiments, the facility can be used by people having various roles other than author with respect to the document, including, for example, editors, approvers, publishers, referees, etc.
By performing in some or all of these ways, the facility makes it easy for an author to obtain and adjust various kinds of feedback on a document prepared by the author.
Also, by performing in some or all of the ways described above and storing, organizing, and accessing information relating to a document graph in an efficient way, the facility meaningfully reduces the hardware resources needed to obtain feedback and adjust its amount, including, for example: reducing the amount of storage space needed and reducing the number of processing cycles needed. This allows programs making use of the facility to execute on computer systems that have less storage and processing capacity, occupy less physical space, consume less energy, produce less heat, and are less expensive to acquire and operate. Also, such a computer system can respond to user requests with less latency, producing a better user experience and allowing users to do a particular amount of work in less time.
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In some embodiments, the facility provides a method in a computing system for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, comprising: for each of one or more categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers for the category, (2) obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the prospective reviewers identified for the category, and (3) causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; for each of at least one of the categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed from the category of document reviewers, and (2) in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of prospective reviewers identified for the category that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides one or more instances of computer-readable media collectively having contents configured to cause a computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: for each of one or more categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers for the category, (2) obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the prospective reviewers identified for the category, and (3) causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; for each of at least one of the categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed from the category of document reviewers, and (2) in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of prospective reviewers identified for the category that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides a computing system comprising: a processor; and a memory, the memory having contents configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: for each of one or more categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers for the category, (2) obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the prospective reviewers identified for the category, and (3) causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; for each of at least one of the categories of document reviewers, (1) receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed from the category of document reviewers, and (2) in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of prospective reviewers identified for the category that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides a method in a computing system for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, comprising: receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers; obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers; causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed; and, in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of identified prospective reviewers that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides one or more instances of computer-readable media collectively having contents configured to cause a computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers; obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers; causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed; and, in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of identified prospective reviewers that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides a computing system comprising: a processor; and a memory, the memory having contents configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: receiving first input originated by the author usable to identify prospective reviewers; obtaining feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers; causing a representation of the obtained feedback to be presented to the author; receiving second input originated by the author indicating that additional feedback is needed; and, in response to receiving the second input, obtaining feedback on the document from each of a second group of identified prospective reviewers that is distinct from the first group.
In some embodiments, the facility provides one or more instances of computer-readable media collectively having contents configured to cause a computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: receiving first input originated by the author specifying reviewer criteria and second input originated by the author specifying a requested number of reviewers; using the reviewer criteria specified by the first input to identify a plurality of prospective reviewers; seeking feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers at least as large as the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; receiving feedback from one or more of the identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was sought; comparing the number of identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was received to the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; and based upon the results of the comparing, adapting the received feedback to be more consistent with the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input.
In some embodiments, the facility provides a method in a computing system for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: receiving first input originated by the author specifying reviewer criteria and second input originated by the author specifying a requested number of reviewers; using the reviewer criteria specified by the first input to identify a plurality of prospective reviewers; seeking feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers at least as large as the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; receiving feedback from one or more of the identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was sought; comparing the number of identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was received to the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; and based upon the results of the comparing, adapting the received feedback to be more consistent with the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input.
In some embodiments, the facility provides a computing system comprising: a processor; and a memory, the memory having contents configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform a method for procuring feedback on a document on behalf of an author of the document, the method comprising: receiving first input originated by the author specifying reviewer criteria and second input originated by the author specifying a requested number of reviewers; using the reviewer criteria specified by the first input to identify a plurality of prospective reviewers; seeking feedback on the document from each of a first group of the identified prospective reviewers at least as large as the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; receiving feedback from one or more of the identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was sought; comparing the number of identified prospective reviewers of the first group from whom feedback was received to the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input; and based upon the results of the comparing, adapting the received feedback to be more consistent with the requested number of reviewers specified by the second input.
In some embodiments, the facility provides one or more instances of computer-readable media collectively storing a feedback data structure for a distinguished document, the feedback structure comprising: for each of a plurality of contributors, feedback received from the contributor on the distinguished document, wherein the number of contributors from home the feedback data structure was adjusted in response to input from an author of the distinguished document requesting, with respect to feedback contained by the data structure at an earlier time, feedback from a larger or smaller number of contributors, such that the feedback contained by the data structure is accessible to the author of the distinguished document.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the above-described facility may be straightforwardly adapted or extended in various ways. While the foregoing description makes reference to particular embodiments, the scope of the invention is defined solely by the claims that follow and the elements recited therein.