Unifying discoverability of a website's services

(54) Title: UNIFYING THE DISCOVERY OF (57) Summary:

NETWORK SITE SERVICES (30) Unionist Priority: 20/02/2007 us 11 / 676,875 (73) Owner (s): Microsoft Corporation (72) Inventor (s): Jane Kim, Sean Lyndersay, Walter Von Koch (74) Attorney (s): DANNEMANN, SIEMSEN, BIGLER & IPANEMA MOREIRA (86) International request: pct uS2008054063 of 02/15/2008 (87) International Publication: wo 2008 / i0360ide 28/08/2008

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“UNIFYING THE DISCOVERY OF SERVICES FROM THE NETWORK SITE”

Fundamentals of the Invention

Network sites can typically provide various services that can be consumed by an individual through their web browser. Such services may include providing search capabilities via a search engine, offering toolbars for installation, offering feeders such as RSS feeds, and a variety of other services. As varied as these services are, it is also the user experience as private discovery services are offered, installing a private service and managing the service once it is installed. For example, several services need to be offered in multiple physical locations on a web page. This requires users to search for and find services that they may be interested in. In addition, once the service is installed, the user experience, as it interacts with the service - for example, to manage the service - is often very specific to that service and varies among other different services. Therefore, in the case of multiple installed services, the user experience is often inconsistent and inconsistent.

Summary of the Invention

Several modalities provide a unified discovery control that can be incorporated as part of a web browser. Unified discovery control provides a central location that describes the various services that a web site has to offer. In addition, unified discovery control can allow the user to interact with the individual services that the web site has to offer by providing the user with the ability to add, update, uninstall and / or otherwise manage the various services that are described in the unified discovery control.

In at least some modalities, a visual overlay indicator is provided and is used to visually notify a user where a particular service added or installed can be found in the user interface of the web browser.

Brief Description of Drawings

FIG. 1 illustrates a system in which the principles of the invention can be employed according to a modality.

FIG. 2 illustrates a part of a browser user interface exemplified according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 illustrates a unified discovery control according to a modality.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example visual indication that indicates where a user can find a particular service added according to a modality.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplified user interface for managing the various services according to a modality.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart that describes the steps in a method according to a modality.

Detailed Description of the Invention

Overview

Several modalities provide a unified discovery control that can be incorporated as part of a web browser. Unified discovery control provides a central location that describes the various services that a web site has to offer. In addition, unified discovery control can allow the user to interact with the individual services that the web site has to offer by providing the user with the ability to add, update, uninstall and / or otherwise manage the various services that are described in the unified discovery control.

In at least some modalities, a visual overlay indicator is provided and is used to visually notify a user where a particular service added or installed can be found in the user interface of the web browser.

Unified discovery control provides a centralized management system that provides the user with a common, predictable and repeatable user experience to interact with the various services that a web site can offer. In the discussion that follows, a section entitled "Exemplified System" is provided and describes only an exemplified system in which the modalities of the invention can be used. Following this, a section entitled “Discovering Web Site Services” is provided and describes several ways in which the web site services can be discovered. Following this, a section entitled “Exemplified Unified Discovery Control” is provided and illustrates by way of example and not limitation, a way in which unified discovery control can be implemented.

Exemplified System

FIG. 1 illustrates a system according to one embodiment, generally at 100. System 100 includes a computing device 102 that has one or more processors 104, one or more computer-readable media 106 and one or more applications 108 that reside in the readable media per computer and are executable by the processor (s). In addition, computing device 102 includes an application in the form of a web browser 110. Any properly configured web browser can be used, examples of which are commercially available from the assignee of this document, as well as others.

In one or more embodiments, the network browser includes or otherwise makes use of a unified discovery control 112 that works as described above and below. It is appreciated and understood that while the unified discovery control is described as comprising part of the network browser itself, the unified discovery control could comprise an autonomous component whose functionality is used by the network browser.

Although computing device 102 is illustrated in the form of a desktop computer, it is appreciated and understood that other computing devices can be used without abandoning the spirit and scope of the claimed subject. For example, other computing devices may include, by way of example and without limitation, portable computers, handheld computers such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones and the like.

Having introduced the general notion of unified discovery control, we now consider some different ways in which unified discovery control can discover what services a particular web site has to offer.

Discovering Network Site Services

As noted above, the web sites can offer a variety of services. Services can come in many shapes and sizes and may include, by way of example and without limitation, search services, subscription services, extension services, services for transferring between service areas (“roaming”), services for discovering structured data, multimedia transfer services, food services, file upload services, call sharing services, product search services, address mapping and similar services.

One way in which unified discovery control can find out what services the web site offers is by examining the various web page descriptions it receives when a user browses to a particular site. For example, web pages are typically described using a hierarchically based markup language, such as HTML. When the web browser receives HTML from the web page, it typically parses the HTML before rendering the web page to the user. In one or more modalities, when the HTML of the web page is parsed, the unified discovery control can look for service descriptions in the HTML. For example, the various service descriptions can be outlined by individual markings that are specific to the type of service, or are more generally associated with services that are offered by the website. Once the unified discovery control has verified which services are offered, discovery control can cause a user interface component to be rendered, which indicates the presence of these services to the user. An example of such a user interface component is provided below.

Another way in which unified discovery control can find out what services a web site offers is by examining and analyzing the content of the web page itself as it applies a set of heuristics to a web page. Specifically, in some cases, the services that a web site offers may not be readily apparent from its associated HTML. In this case, the associated discovery control can examine a page and look for characteristics associated with the service. For example, an embedded hyperlink can serve as an indication of a service. Alternatively or additionally, the unified discovery control can search for the text “transfer” and if there is a link to an “.exe” associated with it.

Regardless of the way in which services are discovered, once discovered, unified discovery control can present a user interface experience that allows the user to check which services are offered and interact in a significantly more centralized way with network website services.

Exemplified Unified Discovery Control

In one or more modalities, once the various services that a web site offers are discovered, the unified discovery control can feature a user interface component that informs the user that the web site offers one or more services.

As an example, FIG. 2 that illustrates a part of a browser user interface exemplified generally in 200. In this example, user interface 200 includes a service button 202. In one or more embodiments, when a web site has one or more services that it offers, service button 202 can be rendered in a visually distinctive way to inform a user that one or more services are offered. For example, at least in some embodiments, service button 202 can be rendered such that it glows, thereby attracting the user's attention.

In this particular example, when the user hovers his cursor over the service button 202, a portion of the unified discovery control 204 suspends to expose the various services that are offered by the web site. In one or more modalities, the various services that are offered by a web site can be organized and arranged by type of service in different categories of type of service. So, in this example, the following categories of service types are exposed for the user: search provider service types, feeder service types, structured data service types (which is a service that allows a user to discover structured data on a web page), and complementary service types. In addition, at least in some modalities, the unified discovery control allows the user to manage their private services through a “Manage Services” tab which is described in detail below.

In one or more modes, the individual buttons or tabs associated with the types of individual services can have multiple different states. For example, if there are any new services that the user has not seen, the service type button may shine to attract the user's attention. Additionally, if there are services available that the user has already viewed, the button may be visible, but not shiny. If there are no services available for a particular type of service, the button for the corresponding type of service category may be blocked or not displayed.

In this example, the types of search provider services are associated with one or more search providers that a website can offer. The type of feeder service is associated with any feeders that the web site offers for subscription. The type of structured data service is associated with the user's ability to locate the structured data that appears on the web page. The type of add-on service is associated with the various extensions that can be added such as, for example, toolbars and the like.

In this example, once the user has hovered his cursor over the service button 202, he can additionally check which particular services are offered under any given service type category, specifically by hovering his cursor over the particular service type. As an example, FIG. 3.

In this, the unified discovery control 204 is shown in separate isolation from the user interface of the network browser. It is noted here that the user hovered over the type of search provider. Responsively, the various search providers offered are exposed via a drop-down menu that also exposes one or more management tools. In this example, the management tool is an “add” button that allows the user to add the particular service. Once the user adds the particular service, the service can be added to their browser and used - even when the user is browsing away from their site.

In one or more ways, when the user adds a particular service, the unified discovery control provides a visual indication of where the user can find the particular service in their web browser. As an example, FIG. 4 in conjunction with the example above. It is assumed in the example of FIG. 3 that the user has selected to add the search provider “Live.com”. Since the added service is a search provider, search provider control - in this case, a magnifying glass - is rendered in a visually different way. In this particular example, a visual overlay control 400 in the form of a bright star is rendered over the control to visually attract the user's eye to the control. It is appreciated and understood that any suitable visual indication can be used to notify a user of where to find a recently added service.

Consequently, unified discovery control provides a single location where all services on the network site can be listed and discovered by the user. Thus, users do not have to search around a particular web page to find the services they may be interested in.

As briefly mentioned above, in one or more modalities, unified discovery control can provide a number of different management tools that can be used by the user to manage or otherwise interact with the services that are described in the control. For example, an instrumentality can provide an indication that the user is already subscribed to a particular service. In this example, a management tool can be rendered next to the listed service and can indicate “signed”. Another management tool may indicate that there is an update for a particular service. In this example, an instrumentality can indicate “update”. Thus, by clicking on the instrumentality “update”, the service can be automatically updated.

In addition, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, services of which the web browser is unaware can be offered using the mechanisms described above. That is, as new services develop, the mechanisms described above can be used to discover and present these services to various users for consumption. In that sense, at least in some modalities, unified discovery control can provide an easily extensible tool that service programmers can use to advertise their respective services for consumption.

As mentioned above, unified discovery control also provides, at least in some modalities, the functionality that enables a user to manage their private services. Specifically, it should be remembered in FIGs. 2 and 3 that a “Manage Services” tab appears in the control. By selecting this tab, a new dialog box can be presented to the user, which enables the user to manage his services.

As an example, FIG. 5 illustrating an exemplified user interface 500 for managing the various services according to a modality. In this example, the 500 user interface can allow individual users to see all the services they have installed, receive updates, enable / disable a service, and uninstall a service. In this example, each service has its type, name, source, username and any associated passwords listed. Consequently, using this interface, a user can not only view all of his installed services, but can also edit credentials. In some modalities at least, the search functionality is provided in the form of a 502 search box that can enable a user to search for a particular service using a text-based search.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart that describes the steps in a method according to a modality. The method can be implemented in conjunction with any suitable hardware, software, software, or combination thereof. In at least some embodiments, the method can be implemented in conjunction with a system, such as the system that is shown and described in FIG. 1. It is appreciated and understood that other systems can be used without abandoning the spirit and scope of the claimed subject.

Step 600 receives one or more network page descriptions. Any network page descriptions can be used. In at least some embodiments, web page descriptions reside in the form of HTML descriptions. Alternatively or in addition, some other types of network markup language could be used, such as XHTML. Step 602 identifies, from the web page descriptions, one or more services that are offered on the web page or on its associated web site. An example of how this can be done is provided above. Step 604 renders a user interface that is configured to describe one or more different types of services. Any suitable user interface and methods of presenting a user interface can be used. In the example above, the user interface resides in the form of an exposed drop-down menu hovering over it that presents multiple different categories of service types under which individual examples of services offered are listed for the user, along with the instrumentalities that enable a user to interact in a meaningful way with the services. It is appreciated and understood that other types of user interfaces can be used without abandoning the spirit and scope of the claimed subject. For example, a user interface could take the form of a sidebar that is docked vertically adjacent to the browser window. Of course, other configurations are possible.

Conclusion

Several modalities described above provide unified discovery control that can be incorporated as part of a web browser. Unified discovery control provides a central location that describes the various services that a web site has to offer. In addition, unified discovery control can allow the user to interact with the individual services that the web site has to offer by providing the user with the ability to add, update, uninstall and / or otherwise manage the various services that are described in the unified discovery control. In at least some modalities, a visual overlay indicator is provided and is used to visually notify a user where a particular installed and added service can be found in the user interface of the web browser.

Thus, unified discovery control provides a centralized management system that provides the user with a common, predictable and repeatable user experience to interact with the various services that a web site can offer.

Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and / or methodological steps, it is understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Preferably, the specific features and steps are described as preferred ways of implementing the claimed invention.