GB2528133A - Method and system for communication between users and computer systems - Google Patents

Abstract

In an interactive on-line system such as an airline reservation system 100, the system website is displayed in a browser but communication between the system and a users device 140 is via asynchronous TCP/IP messaging or SMS text message. At the system, a translator 110 parses the message and converts the message into an industry standard format (e.g. PADIS) which is then sent to the relevant system for processing 120. A response is converted from the industry standard to a human readable form and then sent as an asynchronous message or SMS text message back to the user. The text messages may include metadata to assist in message recognition. The users device is provided with an application which may be specific to a given service provider. Alternatively the application may be common to several service providers and the user inputs a telephone number or short code of a selected provider.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COMMUNICATION BETWEEN USERS AND COMPUTER

SYSTEMS

This invention relates to communications between users arid computer systems.

S In many indust-ies, on-line services have developed over recent years which enable interaction between a consumer and the computer systems of a service provider. One example is in the arline industry Most airlnes operate on line reservation systems which enable their customers to make and amend flight bookings and arrange other related services.

Typically, access is via a secure website and messages are transported to the airlines computer systems via web-service calls using HTTP protocol. HTTP is a World Wide Web protocol and its use is limited to the World P/ide Web. Web service calls are typically blocking calls which terminate when a response is received from the airline system In recent years there has been a proliferation of devices which can access web servIces.

is Whereas a few years ago access was essentially limited to desktop and lap top computers, there are now many smart devices, such as tablets and smart phones, provided by a range of d'fferent manufacturers using a vanety of operating systems The airline or other servce provider must be able to accept communications from any of these devices and must therefore develop web applications for each of these channels and, moreover, support all of these channels. Any change in the configuration of the device or its operating system requires rigorous testing Regression testing is particularly burdensome and must be performed every time a device provider releases a sofiware upgrade. Moreover, when the airline or other service provider make a change to their own software, that change must be tested exhaustively across all channels which is both time consuming and expensive. It is estimated that the cost o developing a new reservation GUI to an airlne.an be up to $10 million and the maintenance of all the ser1⁄4Ices can occupy up to 100 people Lfl a medium sized airline.

While the airline industry is a good example of this problem, it also exists in many other industries which deliver complex interactive services to users including, for example, banking, hotel and other travel industries.

Within the airline industry, the developng use of web services creates further problems As well as using web services to communicate with customers, airlines use web services for a complex network of communications with agents and a variety of airline systems.

NecessarUy, airline representatives are located around the world, often at airports with poor Internet access and the lack of available bandwidth in same locations can make web services hard to run and an inappropriate way of communicating between systems.

S The invention aims to address the problems outlined above, According to the invention there is provided a method of communicating between a telecommunications device and a computer system comprising: providing an appUcation an the telecommunications device; receiving an input from the user to the application; communicating the user input as an asynchronous message or SMS text message to a receiving system at the receiving system mapping the received message to convert the recewed message into a standarcfised message format, sending the standardised message format to a computer system of the receiving party; receiving a response from the computer system, the response being in a standardised format; mapping the response into a human readable form; communicating the human readable response to the user device as an 1.5 asynchronous message or SMS text message, and dispaying the response to the user at the user device.

Embodiments of the invention have the advantage that communications between the communications device and the computer system are either by asynchronous message or SMS text message. This is common to alt device types and operating systems and avoids the need to maintain a plurakty of separate device channels. Moreover, the communications do not need a high bandwdth internet connection making the method suitable for use in remote areas with poor internet bandwidth availability.

In one embodiment the application is specific to a given service provider which has the advantage that the user does not need to input the telephone number or short code for that provider, in the cases of a mobile phone communication, or the IP address in the case of TCP/IP communication as it may already be enabled in the application. Alternatively, an application may enable selection between a plurality of service providers in which case the telephone number or short code or lP address must be enabled or selected. Thus asynchronous message may be transmitted either over the internet using TCP/IP protocol or an SMS text message transmitted over a mobile phone network.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 illustrates a known interaction between users and an airline reservation system; and Figure 2 illustrates an embodiment of present invention.

Figure 1 eustrates how an a nine customer accesses an airine reservation system The S customer accesses a web application 14 via a web browser on their user device lot. iOn via the nternet 12 The user enters information into predefired fields specified by the web application which receives those fields of data and creates web service HTTP caRs to a service that communicates with the reservation system The reservation system is one of many systems which can be accessed in this manner. The web service call is a blocking call and the communication continues until a response is received to the call.

An airline's systems wifi comprise a number of different legacy systems which do not necessarily communicate directly wah one another and which operating using different protocols It is common practice to use a translator which maps electronic messages received from one system component onto a standard message format that can be understood. One example of standardised messages is a standard titled "Passenger and Airport Data Interchange Standards (PADIS) published by IATA (International Air Transport Association). The translator is effectively a look-up table, or series of look-up tables that is used to map a non-industry standard electronic message format onto a standard electronic message format.

Figure 2 shows how the concept of the translator may be used to eliminate the need for data heavy web services, The airline system is illustrated generally at 100. The system includes a translator 110, processes 120 and a database 130. The system communicates with a user 140 exchanging messages both to and from the user, The system also communicates with third party systems 150 and a global distribution system 160. The global distribution system is a network that enables automated transactions between third partes and booking agents However, the interaction between the user, and the system is not via a web call but as either an asynchronous message over the TCP/IP layer or an SMS text message sent over a mobile telephone network The former can be sent over the internet using TCPIIP protocol to a specificed IP address and he latter via the mobde telephone network using the short message service to a speGufled telephone number or short code. The TCP/IP message is asynchronous and so is not a blocking message such that the communication ends once the message has been sent Where the message is sent over the mobile phone network the message requires a destination telephone number or short code and the number of characters is restricted. SMS messages sent on the mobile telephone network are limited to 160 characters although longer messages may be sent by joining separate messages together. For messages sent as asynchronous messages over the internet using the TCP/lP layers of the internet protocol suite there is no limit to the number of characters.

S The user may message the system in any convenient manner. In one preferred embodiment the user downloads an application from the airline onto their asynchronous/SMS enabled service. The application is a messaging application specific to that airline. Thus, the user does not require the IF address, phone number or short code of the airline for those messages. In another embodiment the user can access a messaging application from which they select the airline to which the message wifl be sent. Such an application will require the user to provide the IP address, phone number or short code of the selected airline.

The user may stirl see the store front in the r web browser giving them the famiiar experience of the airline. However, communication between the device and the airline as systems is via asynchrounous internet messaging using the TCP/IP layer or mobile phone text (SMS) message.

As discussed above, translators exist to map between system specific messaging protocols and messaging standards which are recognised throughout the Industry The translator receives messages as free form messages or 5MB texts from users and parses those messages to identify message content This message content can thon to mapped onto a standard format that can be recognised by the airline systems In contrast to the manner in which a user enters data for a web browser, users of texts messages are familiar with messaging in a manner which is similar to a computer language. For example, text speak has evolved as a series of acronyms or contractions which represent longer text. An example is LOL meaning laugh out loud. It is a short step for users to input messages to the system ri a format which can easily be mapped by the translator into a PADIS compliant format.

Unlike conventional machine4o-machine translators, the translator 110 can communicate with the user to ind'cate that a message is not understood The messaging used by users will include metadata, which signals to the translator the context of the message. Users are already Familiar with such metadata from email in which © means to" and websites such as Twitter where # represents about' or wit regard to" Through gradual trairüng of individual users and the community of users as a whole, users will be able to interact effectively with the system.

In addition to communicating in text message format, the input from the user could be in voice format.

Thus, the purpose of the translator is to rewrite messages received from users in an industry standard format that can be understood by the computer systems to which they are to be directed. In many cases this is a straightforward task for example where a request has a simple answer or a yes/no answer. An example might be a request for availability on a gwen fhght on a given day Howe.er more complex messages such as what seats are available may have many, or many thousands of possible responses. The system may require further input from the user, for example to specify the "best avaable" "aisle" or nearest front" to enable a compact response to be sent to the user.

As well as translating natural language inputs from a user to an industry standard code, the translator can also perform the reverse task, translating responses from the system back into a format that can be understood by the user.

The embodiment described has the advantage that a common message format may be used for all devices which removes the need to develop and maintain many separate device specific applications, This vastly reduces the cost to airlines of providing on-line services Although of part cular benefit to airlines, embodiments of the invention may be used in any industry sector, for example in the banking field to handle online banking and in the hotel industry and other forms of travel such as road, rail and sea.

In contrast to messages sent using web services, the embodiment described above is also particularly suited to environments where bandwidth is limited. TypicaVy, conventional communications using web services require a high bandwidth connection to enable large amounts of data to be transferred to and from the user device. In the airline industry, airline representatives are often located at remote airports which have poor internet access. This is particularly the case with smaller airlines. The embodiment described above is particularly advantageous in such an environment as, whether the connection is via the internet or mobile telephone network, the amount data to be transferred is very much smaller than with a web-based solution as the HTML pages of the web applications that are downloaded are often too large for the available bandwidth.

Many modifications to the embodiment described are possible and wiir occur to those skifled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention which is defined solely by the foflowing claims.