Search user interface for building and managing user profiles and search criteria

摘要

A user interface for querying a database permits the saving of searches as queries. The saved searches are manipulated in the same fashion as basic search criteria. In an embodiment particularly suited to lean-back applications like television electronic program guides (EPG), the saved searches are displayed and manipulated as objects in a graphical scene. Thus, a physical metaphor for the process of constructing queries and viewing results is employed. For example, in one specific embodiment, the search criteria are shown as strings of beads in a three-dimensional scene, each bead representing a criterion or a search and each string representing a different category or a set of searches. For example the criteria, drama, action, suspense, and horror may be included in a category of "genre." The searches "Pizza," "Movies," and "High IQ," each named by the user, could be stored in a category. The search "Pizza," for example, might be a useful search for a regular weeknight pizza party and "High IQ" a search designed to return more intellectually demanding content. Continuing the physical metaphor, criteria are selected to form a query by moving corresponding beads to a query string. Results are displayed in a three-dimensional scene also where the accuracy of the match between retrieved records and the query correspond to the placement of results, also represented as beads, along the Z-axis of the scene.