Social Network Topic Hierarchy Navigation

Solution Overview

Problem

Users face difficulty in finding relevant content on social networks due to the vast amount of available information, making it challenging to navigate and discover content of interest.

Innovation Solution

Implementing a user interface that categorizes content by topics, defines a hierarchy of topics, and uses machine-learning algorithms to rank and recommend related articles and topics, allowing users to easily navigate through content by presenting options for related topics, articles, and article pages.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If users perform searches to find content of interest, then users can locate specific content, but users face difficulty finding what they are exactly looking for given the ever-increasing amount of available content

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent search accuracyVSAvoidamount of available content

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces topic models as intermediary structures between users and content. Instead of directly searching through all content, users interact with topic-based navigation interfaces that mediate the search process. The system generates topic models from content metadata and uses these models to create navigational interfaces, acting as an intermediary layer that organizes and presents content in a manageable way.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the vast content repository into topic-based categories and hierarchies. Content is divided into manageable segments organized by topic models, which group related content together. This segmentation transforms the overwhelming总量的 content into structured, navigable topic sections that users can explore systematically.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Adaptability or versatility

If the social network recommends content in user feed, then users may discover content of interest, but users may have difficulty navigating to related content and topics

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent discovery capabilityVSAvoidnavigation ease

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces topic models as intermediary structures between users and content. Instead of directly searching through all content, users interact with topic-based navigation interfaces that mediate the search process. The system generates topic models from content metadata and uses these models to create navigational interfaces, acting as an intermediary layer that organizes and presents content in a manageable way.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent adds a topic-based dimensional layer to content organization. Instead of traditional flat or hierarchical categorization, the system creates topic models that represent content in a semantic dimension space. This allows users to navigate content not just by category but by semantic similarity and topical relationships, adding another dimension to content discovery.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Productivity

If more content is made available on the social network, then user engagement increases, but users face difficulty finding relevant content among the vast amount of information

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser engagementVSAvoidrelevance of content

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces topic models as intermediary structures between users and content. Instead of directly searching through all content, users interact with topic-based navigation interfaces that mediate the search process. The system generates topic models from content metadata and uses these models to create navigational interfaces, acting as an intermediary layer that organizes and presents content in a manageable way.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the organizational parameters of content from traditional categorization to topic-based semantic modeling. By transforming content metadata into topic models with semantic relationships, the system reparameterizes content organization to emphasize relevance and topical coherence, allowing users to find relevant content more effectively despite the increasing volume of available information.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentUS11392851B2Social network navigation based on content relationships

Publication Date: 2022.07.19 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

AI summary

Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for providing a user experience that facilitates navigation among different topics and articles on a social network. One method includes an operation for identifying a hierarchy of topics, each topic corresponding to a respective subject, where the hierarchy defines relationships between the topics. A first topic page for a first topic is presented in a user interface in the social network. The first topic page includes articles and first options for navigating to topic pages of topics related to the first topic. The method further includes detecting a selection of a first article. In response to detecting the selection, a first article page for the first article is presented in the user interface. The first article page includes details of the first article and second options for navigating to topic pages of topics related to the first article.