'METHODS FOR NAVIGATING WITHIN A HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF MULTIPLE INFORMATION LEVELS AND THE CORRESPONDING METHODS FOR NAVIGATING IN NETWORK SITES'.

摘要

Methods to navigate within a hierarchical structure of multiple levels of information and the corresponding methods to navigate on web sites including a plurality of hierarchically organized web pages. A method to navigate within a hierarchical menu structure that collapses with multiple levels is disclosed. Each level in the menu structure contains plural articles, each article corresponds to at least one function, an indicator, a location, or an indicator towards another level. The method of the present invention includes the step of providing a graphic system to the user of the menu displaying items of a given level to be selected, where access of the given level requires sequential access to each of the levels preceding the level given in the hierarchy. An Active Path is dynamically constructed as a sequence of Active Links as the articles are selected using the graphic system of the menu, with an Active Link corresponding to each of the selected articles. Active Links provide direct access to a corresponding function or menu item, without the need to navigate with the graphic user menu system.