Patent Application
20060190435
The invention relates generally to document retrieval. In particular, the invention relates to a method for retrieving documents using attributes based on user behavioral patterns.
Information retrieval has become more important in recent years due to easy access to the Internet and the continuing development of Internet search engines. Users can search for online information by entering subject search terms or phrases in various combinations. Search results can be limited, for example, by specifying resource date ranges and the number of occurrences of the terms or phrases in the resource. A user performing such searches does not necessarily know if a suitable resource or web page for the requested subject exists or where on the Internet the information may be found. Results provided by the search engines typically include a listing of links to web pages previously unknown to the user.
Personal information management applications such as email applications maintain and manage information and documents specific to a user. Techniques for retrieving information through personal information management applications are significantly different that those employed by Internet search engines. With the exception of unread documents, users generally know that a document exists containing the desired information. In some instances, the user has previously read the document many times. Unfortunately, performing a text search on the document library using terms or phrases can result in a large number of unrelated documents which can mask the presence of the desired document.
What is needed is a method for retrieving user documents having greater relevance to the user than currently possible using conventional document searches. The present invention satisfies this need and provides additional advantages.
In one aspect, the invention features a method for retrieving a user document. At least one relevant document in a user library is determined in response to a text search of a plurality of documents in the user library. Each of the relevant documents has a text relevance. A behavioral relevance of the relevant documents is determined based upon a behavioral attribute of the relevant documents. A user relevance of the relevant documents is determined in response to the text relevance and the behavioral relevance of the relevant documents.
In another aspect, the invention features a computer program product for retrieving a user document. The computer program product code includes a computer useable medium having program code. The program code includes program code for determining at least one relevant document in a user library in response to a text search of a plurality of documents in the user library. Each of the relevant documents has a text relevance. The program code of the computer useable medium also includes program code for determining a behavioral relevance of the relevant documents based upon a behavioral attribute of the relevant documents and program code for determining a user relevance of the relevant documents in response to the text relevance and the behavioral relevance of the relevant documents.
In another aspect, the invention features a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave for retrieving a user document. The computer data signal includes program code for determining at least one relevant document in a user library in response to a text search of a plurality documents in the user library. Each of the relevant documents has a text relevance. The program code of the computer data signal also includes program code for determining a behavioral relevance of the relevant documents based upon a behavioral attribute of the relevant documents and program code for determining a user relevance of the relevant documents in response to the text relevance and the behavioral relevance of the relevant documents.
In another aspect, the invention features an apparatus for retrieving a user document. The apparatus includes means for determining at least one relevant document in a user library in response to a text search of a plurality documents in the user library. Each of the relevant documents has a text relevance. The apparatus also includes means for determining a behavioral relevance of the relevant documents based upon a behavioral attribute of the relevant documents and means for determining a user relevance of the relevant documents in response to the text relevance and the behavioral relevance of the relevant documents.
The above and further advantages of this invention may be better understood by referring to the following description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals indicate like structural elements and features in the various figures. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.
In brief overview the present invention relates to a method for retrieving a user document. The method can be implemented as a feature of applications managing documents of a variety of types. For example, the method can be integrated into a variety of email applications as a post query filter implemented upon completion of a text search feature. The method takes advantage of user behavioral attributes that are normally employed when a user views and sorts the results of a standard search for documents in a user library such as an email mailbox. The method includes determining relevant documents from a text search of documents in the user library. Each of the relevant documents has a text relevance. One or more behavioral attributes are examined for each relevant document to determine a behavioral relevance of each relevant document. A user relevance is determined for each of the relevant documents in response to the respective text relevance and behavioral relevance. A user is presented with a list of relevant documents based upon the user relevance. The list can be ordered or otherwise arranged according to user relevance. Consequently, the user viewing the list of relevant documents can quickly find the desired document with less time and effort than is generally required when viewing the results of a standard text-based search.
In this example, the user requests a full-text search of the body of each email in a personal email mailbox. A number of emails satisfying the full-text search criteria are identified and a post query filter (i.e., optimizer) is applied. The post query filter processes the results of the full-text search in a way that is similar to a behavioral pattern a user employs with access only to the “raw” search results. For example, an email read last week is generally more important than an email read a year ago. In another example, an email that is read many times is typically more important to the user than an email read only once or twice. By way of example, a frequently read email can be an email that summarizes an important project or an email that includes a checklist. In web-based email applications, the duration for which an email remains “open” is also an indicator of the importance of the email to the user. However, in rich client email applications such as IBM Lotus Notes™ or Microsoft Outlook™, duration is less useful as an indicator of user relevance because users can have multiple emails open at one time. For example, each email may be open as a separate window so that only the window on top is visible to the user. Thus an email no longer being read can remain open for a substantial time while hidden from view.
The method of the invention is implemented as a post query filter that is executed upon completion of a full-text search. The post query filter examines one or more of the behavioral attributes associated with each email identified in the full-text search results.
In the current example, last read time is the most important behavioral attribute and duration is the least important behavioral attribute. In particular, the determination that an email has been opened within two weeks is a more important indicator of user relevance than a determination that the email was opened more than five times. A determination that the email was opened more than five times is more important to user relevance than the time during which the document remained open, even if the document was open for more than one hour. Thus, the highest relevance value for the last read time attribute exceeds the highest relevance value for the count hits attribute. Similarly, the highest relevance value for the count hits attribute exceeds the highest relevance value for the duration attribute. The behavioral relevance value determined for the email is a combination of the relevance values determined for each of the behavioral attributes.
In this example, the user provides at least one word or phrase for the search and requests (or accepts a default value) that the results be limited to ten emails. Due to processing by the post query filter, it is possible that one or more emails provided by the full-text search may be deemed to have no behavioral relevance and thus not be relevant to the user. Thus the fill-text search can first be executed to identify ten emails. If subsequent processing by the post query filter results in the elimination of one or more text relevant emails, the full-text search is again executed again to identify more than ten text relevant emails and the post query filter is again applied. The process can be repeated until the number of text relevant emails remaining after the last application of the post query filter matches the number of emails requested by the user. Alternatively, the number of text relevant emails returned by the full-text search can be automatically increased to be substantially larger than the requested number. The illustrated example shows an instance in which the requested number of emails is ten but the full-text search identifies fifteen emails.
The text relevant emails identified by the full-text search are listed vertically in descending order of text relevance. The sequential operation of stages of the post query filter is shown as a left to right progression. Brackets indicate emails having the same relevance at the respective processing stage. For example, emails D1, D2, D3 and D4 are determined to have the highest relevance of all text relevant emails. Subsequently, the last time each email was opened by the user is determined (step 130) for all fifteen emails and the relevance is reordered accordingly. In this example, two of the high text relevant emails (D1 and D3) are determined to be of equal and greatest importance based on last read time. Email D4 was read more recently than email D2 therefore email D4 is ranked above email D2 in the last read time column. For example, if email D4 was last read one week ago and email D2 was last read one month ago, then the application of the attribute relevance rules as shown in
Processing continues by determining (step 140) the number of times each of the fourteen emails was read and adjusting the relevance of each email accordingly. Email D3 is now deemed more relevant than email D1 because email D3 was read more often and receives a higher adjustment according to the attribute relevance rules. Email D10 is deemed not relevant because it was never opened and is therefore eliminated from the email listing. For example, email D10 can be an easily identified spam email that the user elected not to open but neglected to delete from the email mailbox.
If the resident email application is web based as described above, the post query filter continues by determining (step 150) the duration, i.e., the sum or “accumulation” of the time each email was open for viewing. The duration for email D9 is less than one minute so it has been eliminated in this stage of the post query filter. The relevance of the remaining twelve emails is adjusted accordingly.
The result of applying the post query filter is a listing of emails according to their user relevance. As described in the example above, the user relevance is determined (step 160) by adjusting the relevance values after sequential examination of behavioral attributes from the most important behavioral attribute (last read time) to the least important behavioral attribute (duration). A list of emails ordered according to user relevance is provided (step 170) to the user. In this example, the list shows the emails arranged in descending order of user relevance as shown in the duration column. Unlike a simple full-text search organized by text relevance, the user does not have to review a large number of emails to find the desired email. Instead, the user typically finds the desired email near or at the top of the listing. Emails with the same user relevance values ((D4 and D6) and (D13 and D15)) can be ordered according to a default criterion or user preference such as alphabetical arrangement by sender or subject line, or according to the time of receipt of the emails. In this example, emails D13 and D15 are not listed in the results because the user only requested a listing of the ten most user relevant emails documents.
Although the method described above is based on a sequential examination of behavioral attributes of documents and adjustments to the relevance values, it should be recognized by those of skill in the art that the method can also be applied in a parallel manner. For example, a behavioral relevance value can be assigned for each behavioral attribute of a document. The resulting behavioral relevance values for each document are then mathematically combined for example, by summing or performing a weighed summation, to provide a user relevance value. Thus there is no intermediate adjustment of behavioral relevance as shown in
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to specific embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, the above description is based on a limited example of a retrieval of an email document, it should be recognized that the method can be applied to documents generally.
