| 摘要 |
A user interface (3) for facilitating navigation through a Web site (25), or any other hypertext network, given a user query (4). The user interface (3) requests pages from the Web site in order for them to be displayed on the browser window (13). The user interface (3) includes two main mechanisms: the navigation tool bar (15) and the navigation tree window (17). The navigation tool bar (15) comprises a sequence of URLs (25). The first two URLs displayed on the navigation tool bar (15) are the last two URLs of the pages that the user browsed, thus providing a history mechanism. The next URL on the navigation tool bar (15) is the current URL identifying the page the user is currently browsing. The URLs that follow the current URL on the navigation tool bar are the consecutive URLs of the most preferred trail (6) from the current URL. All URLs are clickable and cause the navigation tool bar (15) to be updated accordingly. The navigation tree window (17) displays the preferred trails (6) given the user query (4), organised in the form of a tree structure (23) with the trails (6) being ranked from the most preferred, according to their score. The user interacting with the navigation tree window (17) can select any URL on one of the preferred trails (6) causing it to be the current URL. The navigation tool bar (15), the navigation tree window (17) and the browser window (13) are all synchronised according to the current URL. The mechanisms of the user interface (3) provide the user with guidance and context throughout a navigation session, given the input query (4). The user interface (3) can be embodied in a Web site as a navigation mechanism complementing or replacing a Web site search engine. |
