User-Based Program Guide with Social Navigation Axis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional program guides for set-top box devices become inefficient as the number of media content choices expands, making it time-consuming for users to find desired media content, and difficult to locate programming of interest.
Innovation Solution
A user-based program guide system that includes a navigable user axis and a time axis, allowing users to view media content instances accessed by friends or other users of interest, facilitating discovery of interesting content and enhancing social interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional program guides are used with expanding media content choices, then more media content is available to users, but navigation time and difficulty increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The program guide incorporates user behavior feedback by tracking what content users are watching, recording, or have watched in the past. This feedback is used to dynamically generate personalized recommendations and organize content, allowing users to quickly discover relevant content without manually navigating through all available options. The system learns from user interactions and adapts the guide presentation accordingly.
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically performs content curation and organization based on user profiles and viewing history. Instead of requiring users to manually search and filter through content, the guide self-organizes content into personalized categories and recommendations, reducing the navigation burden on users while maintaining access to the full content library.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional program guides are used with expanding media content choices, then more media content is available to users, but ease of locating interesting content deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The program guide segments the large content library into multiple personalized dimensions including user-based segments (content watched by friends or users of interest), time-based segments (content scheduled for future viewing), and preference-based segments (content tailored to individual user tastes). This segmentation allows users to navigate through organized subsets rather than overwhelming monolithic content lists.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces additional navigation dimensions beyond traditional channel and time axes. These include social dimensions (users of interest, friends watching content), behavioral dimensions (viewing history, content preferences), and contextual dimensions (content ratings, genre preferences). This multi-dimensional organization enables users to locate content through multiple pathways, significantly improving ease of operation.
3Ease of operation
If user-based program guide with multiple navigation axes is implemented, then content discovery is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The program guide implements a universal multi-axis navigation framework that handles multiple content organization dimensions (user-based, time-based, preference-based) through a single unified interface. This multi-functional design allows the same guide structure to serve various content discovery needs without requiring separate navigation systems for each dimension, managing complexity through consolidation rather than proliferation.
Solution Approach 2:
The navigation structure employs nested organizational layers where user profiles contain preferences that contain content categories, which in turn contain specific content items. This nested organization allows complex content hierarchies to be managed through progressive drilling down, where each layer provides a simplified view that can be expanded as needed, managing complexity through hierarchical abstraction.
Data Source
AI summary
An exemplary method includes a media content delivery system 1) providing a program guide view of a program guide for display within a viewing area of a display screen, the program guide comprising a navigable user axis representative of a plurality of users selected by a main user as being of interest to the main user and a time axis representative of a plurality of time slots, and 2) presenting, within the program guide view, information identifying one or more media content instances designated for access during one or more time slots included in the plurality of time slots by one or more users included in the plurality of users. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.