Unified Discovery Control for Centralized Web Service Management

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Solution Overview

Problem

Users face a disparate and disjointed user experience when interacting with various services offered by websites, as these services are often scattered across a web page and lack centralized management, making it difficult to discover, install, and manage them.

Innovation Solution

A unified discovery control is integrated into the web browser, providing a central location to describe and manage services, allowing users to add, update, and uninstall services, with visual indicators to notify the user of installed services and a user interface for service management.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If services are scattered across various physical locations on a web page, then services can be offered at multiple locations, but users must hunt and find services which increases user effort and time

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice distributionVSAvoidservice discovery
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a unified discovery control as an intermediary component that aggregates service information from multiple locations and presents it in a single centralized interface. This mediator collects service data from various physical locations on the web page and consolidates it, allowing users to discover all services from one location rather than searching across the entire page.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Adaptability or versatility

If each service has its own specific interaction interface, then each service can be customized, but the user experience becomes disparate and disjointed across multiple services

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice customizationVSAvoiduser experience consistency
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The unified discovery control serves as a universal interface that handles multiple services through a single consistent mechanism. Rather than requiring separate interfaces for each service, this multi-functional control aggregates service management capabilities, providing a standardized way to interact with diverse services while maintaining their individual customization options.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

3Adaptability or versatility

If services are installed and managed individually, then each service can be managed independently, but the management process becomes complex and time-consuming

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice managementVSAvoidservice management time
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges multiple service management functions into a single unified discovery control interface. By combining service discovery, installation, and management capabilities into one consolidated control, the system allows users to manage multiple services through a single interface rather than navigating through separate management mechanisms for each service.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentEP2126827B1Unifying discoverability of a website's services
Publication Date: 2018.08.08 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • EP2126827B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2126827B1 patent drawingFigure 2~3
  • EP2126827B1 patent drawingFigure 4~5

AI summary

Various embodiments provide a unified discovery control that can be incorporated as part of a web browser. The unified discovery control provides a central location that describes various services that a website has to offer. In addition, the unified discovery control can allow the user to interact with the individual services that the website has to offer as 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. Thus, the unified discovery control provides a centralized management system that provides the user with a common, predictable and repeatable user experience for interacting with various services that a website can offer.