Aural navigation of information rich visual interfaces

Abstract

A method comprising generating, by a computer, a model of a website using user interaction primitives to represent hierarchical and hypertextual structures of the website; generating, by the computer, a linear aural flow of content of the website based upon the model and a set of user constraints; audibly presenting, by the computer, the linear aural flow of the content such that the linear aural flow of content is controlled through the use of user supplied primitives, wherein, the linear aural flow can be turned into a dynamic aural flow based upon the user supplied primitives.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 generating, by a computer, a model of a website using user interaction primitives to represent hierarchical and hypertextual structures of the website;   generating, by the computer, a linear aural flow of content of the website based upon the model and a set of user constraints;   audibly presenting, by the computer, the linear aural flow of the content such that the linear aural flow of content is controlled through the use of user supplied primitives,   wherein, the linear aural flow can be turned into a dynamic aural flow based upon the user supplied primitives.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein user supplied primitives comprises a spoken command. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the linear aural flow is further based on a ranking of current topics based upon each topic's page hits the website has received. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2  wherein interrupted audibly presented content is bookmarked such that the bookmark ages over a user stated period and is eliminated upon an ending of a user stated period. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the set of user constraints is derived from a user's past audio browsing history in conjunction with the device used to perform the past audio browsing. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the user supplied primitives are interpreted in context of a user's session. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the linear aural flow sequences individual articles into dialogues for audio presentation including a dialog for an article's headline, a dialog for the article's summary, and a dialog for the article's content. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 2  wherein a spoken command is a name of a category of content available on the website. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the set of user constraints is derived from popularity measures of articles present on the website. 
     
     
         10 . A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by a user device cause the user device to perform operations comprising:
 receiving a model of a website, the model representing hierarchical and hypertextual structures of the website, wherein the model uses user interaction primitives to represent the hierarchical and the hypertextual structures of the website;   receiving a set of user derived constraints;   generating a linear aural flow of content of the website based upon the model and a set of user derived constraints;   audibly presenting the linear aural flow of the content;   determining whether a user command indicates a desire for a dynamic aural flow;   upon determining that a user command indicates a desire for a dynamic aural flow, audibly presenting a dynamic aural flow.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein interrupted audibly presented content is bookmarked such that the bookmark ages over a user stated period and is eliminated upon an ending of a user stated period. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 10  wherein the set of user constraints is derived in part from a user's past audio browsing history in conjunction with the device used to perform the past audio browsing. 
     
     
         13 . A system comprising:
 a user device;   one or more computers operable to interact with the device;   instructions stored on a machine readable storage device for execution by the one or more computers, wherein upon execution the instructions cause the one or more computers to perform the operations of:
 generate a model of a website, the model representing hierarchical and hypertextual structures of the website through usage of user interaction primitives; 
 generate a linear aural flow of content of the website based upon the model and a set of user constraints; 
 provide instructions to the user device causing the user device to audibly present the linear aural flow of the content; 
 upon receiving input from a user, provide instructions to the user device causing the user device to audibly present a dynamic aural flow of the content. 
   
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the one or more computers comprise the user device. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the linear aural flow is further based on a ranking of current topics based upon each topic's page hits the website has received. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the one or more computers comprise a server operable to interact with the device through a data communication network, and the user device is operable to interact with the server as a client. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the one or more computers consist of one computer, the user device is a user interface device, and the one computer comprises the user interface device.