User Interaction Management defines a new set of techniques that put search at the core of a user-centered SOA implementation model. In this new model, all user interaction is driven through and managed by a search platform; a set of standards-based, loosely coupled services; and rich interface widgets. The goal is to create a user experience that is contextually aware, flexible, high-performing, and intuitive. It goes without saying that the business advantages available to financial firms who can deliver such breakthrough experiences to their customers and employees can be game-changing.

Search Evolution
Search is evolving from the simple “search box and document list” metaphor common on the Web. It is rapidly becoming a pervasive part of users’ daily workflow, where information is delivered to users with a deeper understanding of their organizational functions, immediate needs, historical interests, application context, and other evidence about what is most relevant to them. The drive for more contextually aware search is motivated primarily by practical business goals for increasing user satisfaction, revenue, and productivity. This, combined with innovation and broader adoption of rich Web-based and mobile interface technologies, is inspiring new user interface techniques for gathering user input and for presenting results.

Introducing User Interaction Management
This evolution of search has spawned innovation in a distinct class of search-based capabilities that allow application developers and business managers to create contextually aware, “conversational” user experiences that adapt to the user’s intent and ultimately help users to interact with and consume information more quickly and effectively. Through these capabilities, the user experience can be dynamically orchestrated by understanding the context of the user question, leveraging the available clues to the user’s intent from functional, social, application, and process interactions, and executing underlying contextual matching algorithms. We call this emerging contextual model and associated capabilities User Interaction Management.

User Interaction Management represents a new direction in search. It encompasses behind-the-scenes technologies for processing the various forms of intent (“business rules“, “queries”, etc.) and for processing what comes back from matching that intent with content (search results). It also includes tools for application developers, administrators, and business managers to orchestrate the overall interaction and end-user experience.

Figure 1: Interaction Management Services
All search systems must process queries and results, but the actual mechanisms for handling a user’s query and processing results are more like a recipe than a onetime event – and the more sophisticated the application is, the more sophisticated the recipe. Consider an online consumer banking query for “retirement.” Any decent search system will perform the expected operations like spell checking and perhaps synonym expansion (e.g. add “retirement account”, “IRA”, “Roth IRA”, “401K”, etc.), but the real power and potential for User Interaction Management is in combining more sophisticated search services for handling queries and results within a framework that can be easily manipulated.

The Business Implications of User Interaction Management
User Interaction Management technology combines best-of-breed search services within a framework for rapid integration and customization. This creates new opportunities for application developers, business managers, and even end users to take unprecedented control of the overall experience. Figure 2 is an example of a graphical environment for orchestrating a variety of search services into a user interaction paradigm.

Figure 2: A Graphical Workflow for Search-driven Interaction Management
Application developers can use intuitive graphical tools to configure and control user interactions; speeding deployment times while also optimizing the end user’s experience. Business managers looking to monetize search using contextual ads can tightly control the context for ad serving, even incorporating external context information like user profile data or business rules. Finally end users can select from pre-defined interaction flows and customize their experience to reflect their personal preferences.

For large corporate IT centers deploying enterprise search in a shared services model, User Interaction Management represents technologies that will empower lines of business within the organization to create their own experiences without placing additional burden on the central IT staff. Companies monetizing search on public facing sites can roll out new features more quickly, create more compelling end user experiences, and develop new monetization models virtually “on-the-fly”.

The results for businesses are delighted users, increased revenue, and increased productivity.

Nathan Treloar is the Senior Vice President of Technology at FAST, A Microsoft® Subsidiary. He can be reached via email at nate.treloar@fastsearch.com.

For more information, please contact Elena Filimonova at 646-792-0230; email: elena.filimonova@fastsearch.com; web: www.fastsearch.com.