Silent Content Update in User Interface Units
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content delivery systems face challenges in providing up-to-date content to user devices without disrupting the user experience, particularly in scenarios where content items are not prefetched or are outdated due to errors in prefetching operations.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a 'silent updating' method where processors receive a request to access a User-Interface (UI) unit, initially display available content items, and transparently merge up-to-date versions into the UI unit, replacing outdated items without visible indications, such as screen flicker or scrolling, by assessing visibility metrics and resource availability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If content items are prefetched to user devices in advance, then content availability for immediate display is improved, but content freshness deteriorates due to errors in prefetching operations or outdated cached versions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary prefetching of content items to user devices during off-peak times or in advance of expected user requests. This allows content to be available immediately when users access the application, reducing display latency while accepting that the content may be outdated. The preliminary action of prefetching resolves the time loss contradiction by preparing content beforehand.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where the server receives information about which content items are displayed from user devices. Based on this feedback, the server determines which content items need updating and sends update notifications. This feedback loop resolves the reliability contradiction by ensuring content freshness is maintained through targeted updates based on actual usage patterns.
2Reliability
If the system waits to fetch up-to-date content before displaying it, then content freshness is improved, but user experience deteriorates due to increased display latency and potential blank screens
Solution Approach 1:
The system displays content items from local cache immediately without waiting for network verification of freshness. This preliminary display action ensures the user sees content instantly, maintaining ease of operation. The content is displayed in an 'available but not verified' state, prioritizing user experience over immediate freshness verification.
Solution Approach 2:
After displaying content from cache, the system asynchronously verifies content freshness with the server in the background. If the content is outdated, the system receives feedback and updates the content silently. This feedback mechanism maintains content freshness without impacting the initial user experience, as the verification and update occur after the user has already seen the content.
3Reliability
If the system updates content items in the background after display, then content freshness is improved, but user experience deteriorates due to visible updates such as screen flicker or scrolling
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the content update process from the visible display area and performs it in the background. When content needs updating, the system retrieves the updated content item from the server and processes it separately from the user's current view. This extraction of the update operation prevents visual disturbances during the update process.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs content updates in a different dimension - specifically, in the background thread or memory space separate from the user interface rendering thread. The updated content is prepared and validated before being seamlessly integrated into the display, changing the temporal and spatial dimension of the update operation to avoid user-perceived disturbances.
4Ease of operation
If the system displays placeholder content while fetching updated content, then user experience is improved by avoiding blank screens, but perceived latency increases as users must wait for actual content replacement
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a copy of the existing displayed content item and uses this copy as a placeholder while fetching the updated content. The placeholder is a functional copy that maintains the visual structure and layout, preventing blank screens. Once the updated content arrives, the system replaces the placeholder copy with the actual updated content, minimizing the perceived latency by keeping the interface visually populated throughout the update process.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for content delivery (20) includes a network interface (64) and one or more processors (44, 68). The network interface is configured for communicating over a communication network (32). The one or more processors are configured to receive from a user of a user device (24) a request to access a User-Interface (UI) unit that includes one or more content items, to initially display, in response to the request, the UI unit to the user with versions of the content items that are available for immediate display in the user device, regardless of whether the initially displayed versions are up-to-date or not, and, for at least a content item whose initially displayed version is not up-to-date, to obtain an up-to-date version of the content item, and merge the up-to-date version of the content item transparently to the user into the UI unit being displayed, to replace the initially displayed version.