BARLA ANNALISA (IT)
NUNZI SIMONE (IT)
| US20130021346A1 | 2013-01-24 | |||
| US20150052167A1 | 2015-02-19 | |||
| EP1679625A2 | 2006-07-12 |
| CLAIMS 1. Method of aiding the definition of sets of complex and structured information digital contents, also of multimedia nature, by at least one specialised operator in order to facilitate the realisation of said complex and structured information contents usable by at least one target user, characterised in that it comprises the following steps: a) defining the contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form, which said at least one specialised operator considers to include, possibly in a different form, in said complex and structured contents; b) collecting said contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form to form an unorganized set of information; c) analysing said unorganized set of information, the relevant variants and relationship between said contents in order to create a mapping of said unorganized set of information and in order to define at least one homogeneous set of information contents; d) organizing said at least one homogeneous set of information contents to set up at least one elementary block of contents, which can be used and reused in one or more of said complex and structured information contents; e) cataloguing said at least one elementary block of contents in such a way as to create at least one distinctive parameter that can be representative of the information contained in said at least one elementary block of contents; f) defining and possibly representing in graphic form, part or all of the relational criteria and/or logics that involve one or more instances of said at least one elementary block of contents depending on at least one relational parametrization defined by said at least one specialised operator; g) associating part or all of the possible combinations of said one or more instances of said at least one elementary block of contents selected in the preceding step, to create a specific set of said elementary blocks of contents, said set being characterised by information content that is exhaustive and not exceeding what is considered to be of interest to said target user; h) selecting, based on the actions of said at least one target user, one or more of said sets of elementary blocks of contents; i) presenting the final aggregate to said at least one target user for the use of said complex information contents. 2. Method according to claim 1, wherein said complex and structured information contents are presented in electronic format by means of suitable computer media, which allow the use thereof, even repeated and/or even contemporary, by one or more of said at least one target user. 3. Method according to claims 1 and 2, wherein said complex and structured information contents are presented in telematic mode in the form of a hypertext structure as known to the background art in the field of the technologies forming the global telecommunications INTERNET network. 4. Method according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein said relational criteria and/or logics are represented in graphical form as at least one ordered flowchart defining at least one bidirectional relationship between said relational criteria and/or logics and said elementary block of contents. 5. Method according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein at least one ordered flowchart is associated with at least one punctual presentation of said complex and structured information contents, which punctual presentation is preferably expressed in the form of a hypertext structure and characterised by information content not exceeding what is considered to be of interest to said at least one target user. 6. Method according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein each one of said at least one punctual presentation of said complex and structured information contents is performed depending on the preferences expressed by said at least one target user, possibly at the very moment when said at least one target user requests the use thereof. 7. Method according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein each alteration of the form and/or substance of said at least one elementary block of contents is replicated, possibly in the absence of input by said at least one specialised operator, to each one of said at least one punctual presentation of said complex and structured information contents. 8. Method according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein a dematerialisation process is applied to said contents in an unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form, which converts said contents in an unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form into the form of electronic signals, without altering the information content thereof. 9. System of aiding the organizing of complex and structured information contents, even of multimedia nature, by at least one specialised operator in order to optimise the presentation and/or use of said complex and structured information contents by at least one target user, comprising: one or more processing units, also capable of temporarily and/or permanently storing a set of information in at least one possibly dedicated memory area, said one or more processing units being able to comprise electronic devices for general use or specialised for the purpose pertaining to the invention; one or more algorithms for processing information contents, the operational steps with relevant instructions of said one or more algorithms being coded as part of a processing program recallable and executable by said one or more processing units possibly in the form of firmware and/or software; one or more mechanisms for storing information contents, preferably in the form of database possibly capable of classifying and optimising the storage of said information contents, said database being able to operate in said at least one memory area of said one or more processing units; one or more devices for collecting contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form and possibly for converting information contents, originally in different format, into the form of electronic, preferably digital, signals; one or more man-machine interface units capable, inter alia, of presenting complex and structured information contents to at least one target user and/or presenting possible requests for data entry used by said one or more algorithms; one or more man-machine interface units capable, inter alia, of interacting with said at least one target user by transforming the actions thereof into input control signals into said one or more algorithms; one or more man-machine interface units capable, inter alia, of interacting with at least one specialised operator, thus generating, by virtue of the actions performed by said operator, input signals into said one or more information content processing algorithms; one or more analysers of said contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form, capable of analysing and/or classifying the information, by organizing them according to what is intended by at least one specialised operator of said support system for organizing information contents; one or more generators of complex and structured information contents according to said operational steps of said one or more information content processing algorithms said system being characterised in that it can generate complex and structured information contents depending on the input control signals that said at least one target user offers to the system, said information contents resulting from the structured composition of at least one elementary block of default contents that are assembled to generate the final information, relevantly to the condition identified on the basis of the input data provided by said at least one target user and according to the method described above, in the implementation thereof: - one or more processing units perform the operational steps making up the content processing algorithm; the one or more devices for the collection of contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form support at least one operator specialised in the step of collecting the initial contents, for example generating digital contents from paper sources; the one or more analysers of said contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form, possibly implemented in the form of software stored in at least one memory area of at least one processing unit, which also allows the operation thereof through the execution of the corresponding operational steps, supports said operator specialised in the analysis and/or classification of said contents in order to generate said at least one elementary block of contents; the one or more man-machine interface units interact with said operator specialised in the operations that lead to the creation of said elementary blocks of contents by said content processing algorithm, said interface units being able to consist of devices known to the background art, such as, for example, one or more keyboards, one or more video pointing members also operating in graphic mode; depending on the inputs coming from said one or more man-machine interface units, said algorithm interacts with said operator specialised in the operations that lead to the definition of said relational criteria and/or logics, which involve two or more instances of said at least one elementary block of contents the one or more mechanisms for storing information contents, preferably in the form of an indexed relational database stored in at least one memory area of at least one processing unit, which also allows the operation thereof in the form of software, allow said specialised operator to store said elementary blocks of contents and/or relational criteria and/or logics and/or said complex and structured information contents, part or the totality of said information being made available at the moment in which the use thereof is necessary; the one or more man-machine interface units for the presentation of the contents in the form of at least one audio-visual and/or tactile device, such as, for example, monitors, devices with touch screen, audio transducers and/or printers, including on paper. 10. System according to claim 9, wherein said use of contents occurs through one or more telecommunications networks capable of transporting information contents of any source in the form of at least one signal, from any source to any destination by means of adequate physical infrastructures known to the people skilled in the art, said at least one signal being for example of an electrical and/or optical type and/or electromagnetic radiation. |
"User-centred design method and system for structuring and automatically updating information contents "
DESCRIPTION
The use of information content, increasingly in digi- tal format, has extended over time, becoming an in creasingly widespread method by which people can ac cess a wide and increasingly complex range of infor mation that has become part of the daily life of the population for a still growing number of services. At the same time, the complexity of the content has grown and the possible branching of data that is used and presented to the end user has increased.
Combining different elements involved, in which it is possible to identify, among other things, a large and uneven user base, growth of the amount of information and a higher coverage level of the offe red services, it involves an expo-nential increase of editorial activities of said information content by specialised operators who rely on tools designed to optimize the production of such content in multiple implementations with the aim of combining usability, data structuring, possible interaction and maximum reusability of resulting content by means of a struc turing that is preferably carried out during the edi- torial phase.
A common example of this application is found in a website creation, where textual content are combi ned with multimedia content and/or images and/or other forms of information, possibly interacting with the user, to be presented to one or more target users who are often looking for a subset of the totality of information available on said websites, as said sub- set must be customized and outlined by all and only the information of interest by said user.
Moreover, especially in case of websites offe ring services such as medical applications, according to a set of elements characterizing a single target user or a group of similar users, it is required to interact on a limited number of input parameters in order to precisely define what will finally be pre sented according to these inputs and then as a result of intentions of target user requesting a well- defined subset of content of interest.
To improve the effectiveness of the definition of contents, the prior art comprises a set of appli cations for creating and managing information con tent. These applications are called Content Manage- ment Systems (CMS), which allow to split design activity from editorial activity and add the possibility to split out contents into elementary information blocks.
In these CMS applications blocks can be reused. For example, a caption, a title, a text, can be used more than once without requiring rewriting.
Although blocks reusability is a new feature recently implemented, it is limited to replication of identical content cases; for example, a caption is attached to the photo it refers to and if the same photo is reused in different positions, the caption is also reused without having to be rewritten each time it is replicated the photo. Another limitation in prior art is that it doe sn't handle any relationship between different blocks nor the meaning that users attribute to each specific content; this limits the usability to frequent repe- titions of always identical micro content cases.
The present invention, an embodiment of which called "Simplify", aims to go beyond the above men tioned problems by redefining the traditional process of content creation based on an user-centered ap- proach, i.e. by defining a method from whose applica tion one or more complex and structured information content can be obtained, usable in different forms by at least one user, offering the best experience and presenting the highest possible content quality, especially services to users context provided by com plex entities such as Public Administrations, hospi tals, large companies that are supported by articula ted organizational processes, and easily involve re petitive interactions with different information sources normally delocalized. Hence the name "Simplify" with reference to the Anglo-Saxon term refer ring to the simplification of these content creation processes in different forms.
Innovative approach of present invention is ba- sed on mapping the whole complexity of each service and systematization in a single body of as many de scriptions as there are users typologies and each service variants. These de-descriptions, composed of reusable text blocks, are finally grouped by target user profile and reused several times, both within the same information unit and in different informa tion units. In this way each target user finds in a single point all the information he or she is looking for, as if each set of complex and structured information contents had been developed exactly for each of his or her specific case, even in the case of extremely articulated processes/services.
Advantageously, the present invention allows complex entities to significantly reduce the amount of specialized operators needed to keep multiple in- stances of involved information content sets updated, effectively increasing the efficiency of the informa tion content building process by describing in the most effective and usable way even the most complex of services, requiring a fraction of the human re- sources required by traditional design and producing content designed exactly around users' needs.
Therefore, the present invention makes it possi ble to describe even the most articulated services to users through continuously updated information units that are clear and inclusive, reducing all information not directly addressed towards the target of the specific information unit, focusing and systematizing all relevant information, favouring inclusiveness and ease of use. The one or more specialized operators take on the process complexity and use it to build a clear and concise information structure designed around the target user. This information structure generates all information units of related service, in a federated logic in which each target user finds all and only the information about him, as if the content had been designed explicitly and exclusively for that target user. The invention achieves the above purposes by of fering a method of aiding the definition of sets of complex and structured information content that sup ports at least one specialised operator in an articu lated path whose ultimate aim, as said, is the gene ration of one or more complex and structured information content usable by at least one target user. More specifically, the method of aiding ithe definition of sets of complex and structured in-formation content sets comprises the steps of: a) defining the contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form, which said at least one specialised operator considers to include, possibly in a different form, in said complex and structured contents; b) collecting said contents in unstructured and/or inhomogeneous form to form an unorganized set of information; c) analysing said unorganized set of information, the relevant variants and relationship between said contents in order to create a mapping of said unorganized set of information and in order to define at least one homogeneous set of information contents; d) organizing said at least one homogeneous set of information contents to set up at least one elementary block of contents, which can be used and reused in one or more of said complex and structured information contents; e) cataloguing said at least one elementary block of contents in such a way as to create at least one distinctive parameter that can be representative of the information contained in said at least one elementary block of contents; f) defining and possibly representing in graphic form, part or all of the relational criteria and/or logics that involve one or more instances of said at least one elementary block of contents depending on at least one relational parametrization defined by said at least one specialised operator; g) associating part or all of the possible combinations of said one or more instances of said at least one elementary block of contents selected in the preceding step, to create a specific set of said elementary blocks of contents, said set being characterised by information content that is exhaustive and not exceeding what is considered to be of interest to said target user; h) selecting, based on the actions of said at least one target user, one or more of said sets of elementary blocks of contents; i) presenting the final aggregate to said at least one target user for the use of said complex information contents.
Further features and advantages of this inven tion will be more evident from the detailed descrip tion of an embodiment form but not exclusive shown as a non-exhaustive example using the attached drawing tables in which: Fig.l shows the sequence of steps representing a method of aiding the definition of sets of complex and structured information content and relative cor respondence with the general steps of the method; Fig.2 shows a schematic representation of a me thod part concerning the transition from drafting phase to structuring phase;
Fig. 3 shows a schematic representation of a me thod part concerning textual description of two ser- vice alternatives and the flowchart with two bran ches.
Fig. 4 shows a schematic representation of me thod part concerning textual description of a third service alternative in addition of Fig. 3 variants. Fig. 5 shows a block diagram of the system of aid to the definition of complex and structured sets of information digital content according to an inven tion embodiment form.
Referring to Fig. 1, in an embodiment form steps of method described above in points a) to i) are interconnected and can be organized in four main distinct phases in addition to a fifth phase as represented in Fig. 1 block diagram and in particular:
- Phase of collection (152) reflects step b) of me- thod (102) and offers tools with which to collect and systematize content describing a service, regardless of its origin: paper document, web page, pdf, etc...
In fact, said contents complete each other, overlap ping or even contradicting each other, offering at least a specialised operator the possibility to ga ther them in a single point in order to be able to analyze and compare them more quickly. - Drafting phase (153) reflects step c) of method
(103) offering an environment for example of word processing in which to systematize collected content and review the form of said collected contents with particular attention to reviewing language terms used e.g. semantics and language used making content clear, inclusive, creating trust and relationship.
- Structuring phase (154) reflects steps of method d)
(104), e) (105), f) (106) structuring by creating blocks of elementary content (104) catalogued and/or indexed (105) in order to be easily identified for at least a representative parameter used as a reference in each use described below.
Moreover, always in structuring phase (154) lo- gics and eventually relational criteria (106) between said blocks of elementary contents are defined by specialised operator according to the final result that said specialised operator aims to achieve and presenting to at least a target user during the frui- tion phase (156);
- Federation phase (155) reflects step (g) of method (107) in which one or more specialised operators as sociate each page/service variant to each page rele vant site. This generates a precise subset of neces- sary information for each type of user, regardless even of source site. Blocks of content that appear on more than one page or on more than one site are defined "federated" and it is provided that the federa tion granularity can be extended up to minimum dimen- sions such as a single word within a text block. Also in text block example, it is possible to have several fully federated texts that differ, for example, only for a date or an address (a parameter). Each informa- tion unit is thus identical to the connected ones, but presents specific date or address for each servi ce variant and for that target user. Thus two infor mation units may differ for a single block of text. In this case their federation index is very high and their maintenance is ultra efficient.
According to prior art this result would be im possible. It would be however necessary to describe every variant, but without possibility to structure them in a coherent diagram as instead offered by pre sent invention and shown according to present embodi ment form in Fig. 2, 3 and 4. In another example con cerning a website locally or via Internet presented, it should also decide whether to include information from all variants on a single page or whether to re plicate common information on several pages, each with its specific variant. However, both possibili ties have serious problems, which tend to worsen very quickly as the complexity of the process/service de- scribed increases.
If all informations are included in a single pa ge, complexity is entirely overturned on target user and it becomes necessary to use instructions to un tangle them. The more complex is the service, the mo- re difficult and redundant all the information to gether, and even more complex are the instructions.
Instead, in case of division and replication in several pages, site information and navigation archi tecture results weighed down. In addition redundancy involves replicating pages in a systematic way, for each variant. As service complexity grows, site com plexity quickly becomes unsustainable. Even finding the right page is a challenging task: this completely frustrates website existence.
Federation (155) can also take place on very diffe rent information units or on different services. Ac- cording to the above mentioned websites example, fe deration (155) can involve different sites, each one with its own specificities. For example, a service could be provided in synergy by region, municipality and district and related web pages could however de- scribe it in its wholeness thanks to the federation logic of present invention. For target users, acces sing to site of region, municipality or district would not make any difference: they would find all and only information about them. In case of shared blocks between different services, drafting and maintenance time is greater than time needed to write and keep updated equivalent informa tion according to prior art methods.
Consequently, as variants grow, method efficien- cy increases, which guarantees the possibility of governing both elementary block and whole process at the same time. This is a great advantage in terms of updating, accuracy and coherence of the information and communication tone. During fruition phase (156) in which target user uses contents organized by present invention, this method also allows to fold and hide complexity, so as show to target user the only information concerning his case and, in case of multiple choices, descrip- tion proceeds as far as possible, then asks to target user in which branch he falls to present him only re levant branch through a series of multiple-choice questions - even nested - and in this way guiding him to the definition of his case. Only then information about sequence of responses of target user are pre sented.
An embodiment example of method, and in particu- lar collection concepts (152), drafting (153), struc turing (154) and federation (155), is shown in Fig.
3, 4 and 5 with reference to websites creation that are designed by sharing part of the information ac cording to the method characterizing this invention. Fig. 2 shows a non-organized collection of con tents (201) in a destructured and/or uneven form ana lyzed and systematized according to drafting step (153) in order to create a mapping of said non- organized set of information and in order to define at least a homogeneous set of informative contents (202); said collection is then organized and catalo gued to constitute at least an elementary block of contents, for example in number equal to four (2030) (2031) (2032) (2033); A relative diagram (204) is then defined associating a geometrical shape to each text block (2040) (2041) (2042) (2043). Thus dividing text in blocks leads to the creation of said flow chart (204) which represents the service phases that the text describes. Flowchart and text are biunivo- cally linked: any change on one side, affects the other one. In this way it is possible to represent a first variant of the service in question in a structured way.
Fig. 3 shows the step describing the second va- riant of a service: no complete rewriting is necessa ry because blocks (2030) (2032) (2033) are unchanged and method requires to identify differences from the first variant, to define the position in which these differences occur in divergence form, to divide text in correspondence to this position and to define new blocks (3031) (3032), specific, which flank existing blocks (2031). Each common block to both variants is associated to both and then reused. Each specific block is instead assigned only to its variant. A corresponding flowchart (304) is created based on what already exists (204) with amendment of new geometric figures representing new content blocks (3041) (3042).
Number of variants is virtually unlimited and method provides that a new variant is created for each structured content or service that specialised operator wants to make available to target user; the one or more specialised operator(s) simultaneously complete textual description and flowchart for the whole process. A structure of sequences of partially overlapping content blocks is thus formed: a flow chart, either tree or network, precisely mapping all variants of service in question, all possible flows. This diagram is composed by all block sequences that describe all service variants, whether they consist of common blocks to several variants, specific blocks or a combination of both types. Finally, each sequen- ce automatically produces the corresponding set of structured content. Fig. 4 shows a further variant to the structure of previous figure where two new content blocks (404) (405) are defined it can be obser ved that federation level is very high between two variants in Fig. 3 (303) and meaningfully lower in Fig. 4 variant (403).
- This invention also refers to an aid system for organizing complex and structured informa- tion contents that supports at least a specia lised operator in an articulated path whose ultimate purpose, as said, is generating one or more complex and structured information contents usable by at least a target user; an embodiment form is shown in Fig. 5 and comprises:
- at least a computer unit (501) comprising ge neral purpose or specialised electronic devi- ces relevant to the invention and responsible for calculation and processing operations of information as well as execution of operating steps encoded in different ways in software and/or firmware form; - at least a storage unit (502) responsible for temporarily and/or permanently storing a set of information during part or whole phases of method related to the invention, interacting with said at least one processing unit (501) and being able said at least one storage unit
(502) be realized in different implementation forms and with prior art notes;
- One or more display units (505), such as a mo nitor and/or paper printer, dedicated to pre- senting organized and structured content to at least one target user (550);
- One or more pointing units (506) such as devices commonly known by the Anglo-Saxon term "mouse" to allow interaction of at least one target user (550) with the system during con tents fruition (156) as described above;
- One or more input unit (507) such as for exam ple a physical or virtual keyboard by means of touch screen to integrate the pointing units in allowing interaction of at least one target user (550) with the system during the content fruition phase (156); Number of said users (550) is virtually unlimited and content fruition (156) can take place by means of different technologies and/or devices such as perso nal computers, laptops, personal mobile terminals in different forms. Preferably fruition takes place by means of at least one telecommunications network (504) with which processing unit (501) exchanges in formation contents in form of digital data by means of one or more communication units (503); this invention is not limited by the presence or absence of said telecommunications network (504).
As widely described, invention requires the in volvement of a specialised operator (560) in prece ding phases of contents fruition by target user (550). These operations require a high level of inte- ractivity between system and operator (560) that can involve functional units such as:
- One or more display units (508), such as a mo nitor and/or paper printer;
- One or more pointing units (509) such as devi- ces commonly known by the Anglo-Saxon term
"mouse" to allow operator interaction (560) with system during one or more phases comprised in method, e.g. Collection (152), Drafting (153), Structuring (154), Federation (155); - One or more input units (510) such as a physi cal or virtual keyboard by means of a touch screen to integrate pointing units in allowing operator interaction (560) with system during one or more phases comprised in method, e.g. Collection (152), Drafting (153), Structuring (154), Federation (155);
- One or more collection units (520) of contents in destructured and/or uneven form and possi bly for conversion into electronic signals, preferably digital, of information contents originally in different formats; for example, it is possible to refer to image and/or video acquisition devices, audio recorders and/or optical image and/or text readers for the con version of paper documents into digital for mat.
According to the above description, it is evi- dent that the instrument, according to present inven tion, achieves intended purposes.
Object of the invention is susceptible of seve ral modifications and variants, all of them comprised in inventive concept expressed in attached claims. All the details can be replaced by other technically equivalent elements, and materials can be different according to the needs, without leaving the scope of protection of present invention.
Although this invention has been described with particular reference to attached figures, reference numbers used in description and claims are used to improve invention intelligence and do not constitute any limitation on the scope of protection claimed.