IP Library › Granted Patent US 12,749,100
Granted Patent B2
US 12,749,100 · App. 18/533,043 · Granted Sep 29, 2026

Systems and methods for attribute characterization of usability testing participants

Inventors: Jordi Ibañez (Barcelona, ES); Laura Bernabe Miguel (Denver, CO); David Torres Pascual (Fuenlabrada, ES); Xavier Mestres (Barcelona, ES)
Assignee: UserZoom Technologies, Inc.
G06Q30/0283G06N5/04G06N20/00
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,749,100
App. No.
18/533,043
Granted
Sep 29, 2026
Kind
B2
Abstract

Systems and methods for attribute determination in a usability study are provided. The system includes the ability to collect screener questions and response pairs and determine the type of question. The question and response pairs may be processed for topic and entity extractions using machine learning (ML) models. From the collected topics and entities, a dictionary of attributes may be generated and eventually expanded/added to as new information regarding the participant becomes available. This attribute dictionary may take the form of a vector dictionary, in some particular embodiments. In some cases, the type of question being posed may dictate how the response is processed. These include a Boolean style question, a quantitative question, a single response question and a multi-response type question.

Claims (61)

1 . A method for identifying attributes in a plurality of usability study participants comprising:

monitoring question and response pairs corresponding to participants in the study by inserting a virtual tracking code to a web site targeted for the study at a local machine to each participant, wherein the tracking code collects data including at least one of number of clicks, keystrokes, keywords, scrolls, and time on tasks, and providing the collected data to a server for additional analysis;

receiving question and response pairs for participants in the study;

identifying a topic of a question portion of a question and response pair using at least one topic machine learning (ML) model;

receiving a plurality of name entity recognition (NER) ML models;

selecting a preferred NER ML model from the plurality of NER ML models based upon accuracy of each NER ML model to the topic;

identifying an entity attribute of at least one of a response and the question portion of the question and response pair using the preferred response NER ML model;

decoding the entity attribute of the at least one of the response and the question portion of the question and response pair to generate a vector for a corresponding participant; and

storing the vector in a vector dictionary.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further including:

identifying a question type; and

processing the question and response pair based on the question type:

wherein the processing the question and responses pair includes at least one of a Boolean response processing, a quantitative response processing, a single response processing, and a multi-response processing.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the Boolean response processing includes collecting a binary state for the question topic.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the single response processing includes performing a topic extraction and an entity extraction on the responses.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the multi-response processing includes performing at least two topic extractions and an entity extraction for each topic on the responses.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising fielding the participants in a usability study.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the fielding the participants includes:

detecting fraudulent participants based upon the vector for each participant;

screening the participants based upon the vector for each participant;

predicting a conversion rate for the participants based upon the vector for each participant;

selecting a provider based upon the conversion rate of the participants in the provider; and

onboarding participants from the provider to the usability study.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising generating a question recommendation for the usability study based upon the vector for each participant.

9 . A system for identifying attributes in a plurality of usability study participants comprising:

a system server configured to,

monitor question and response pairs corresponding to participants in the study by inserting a virtual tracking code to a web site targeted for the study at a local machine to each participant, wherein the tracking code collects data including at least one of number of clicks, keystrokes, keywords, scrolls, and time on tasks, and providing the collected data to a server for additional analysis,

receive question and response pairs for participants in the study,

identify a topic of a question portion of a question and response pair using at least one topic machine learning (ML) model,

receive a plurality of name entity recognition (NER) ML models,

select a preferred NER ML model from the plurality of NER ML models based upon accuracy of each NER ML model to the topic,

identify an entity attribute of at least one of a response and the question portion of the question and response pair using the preferred NER ML model,

decode the entity attribute of the at least one of the response and the question portion of the question and response pair to generate a vector for a corresponding participant, and

a database configured to store the at least one vector as a vector dictionary.

10 . The system of claim 9 , further including:

identifying question type; and

processing the question and response pair based on question type:

wherein the processing the question and responses pair includes at least one of a Boolean response processing, a quantitative response processing, a single response processing, and a multi-response processing.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the Boolean response processing includes collecting a binary state for the question topic.

12 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the single response processing includes performing a topic extraction and an entity extraction on the responses.

13 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the multi-response processing includes performing at least two topic extractions and an entity extraction for each topic on the responses.

14 . The system of claim 9 , further comprising fielding the participants in a usability study.

15 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the fielding the participants includes:

detecting fraudulent participants based upon the vector for each participant;

screening the participants based upon the vector for each participant;

predicting a conversion rate for the participants based upon the vector for each participant;

selecting a provider based upon the conversion rate of the participants in the provider; and

onboarding participants from the provider to the usability study.

16 . The system of claim 15 , further comprising generating a question recommendation for the usability study based upon the vector for each participant.

17 . A method of predicting fulfillment criteria for a usability study comprising:

monitoring question and response pairs corresponding to participants in the study by inserting a virtual tracking code to a web site targeted for the study at a local machine to each participant, wherein the tracking code collects data including at least one of number of clicks. keystrokes, keywords, scrolls, and time on tasks, and providing the collected data to a server for additional analysis; and

performing topic and entity extractions on a question/response pair using a machine learning (ML) model by:

identifying a topic of a question portion of the question and response pair using at least one topic ML model;

receiving a plurality of name entity recognition (NER) ML models;

selecting a preferred NER ML model from the plurality of NER ML models based upon accuracy of each NER ML model to the topic;

performing an entity extraction on the response using the preferred NER ML model;

decoding the extracted topic and entity to generate an attribute for a plurality of study participants;

estimating a conversion rate of a subset of the study participants based upon the rarity of an attribute and the number of the plurality of study participants that are known to have said attribute;

estimate a time to field based upon the estimated conversion rate and a number of extended study offers;

querying a historical study database to compare the usability study to previous usability studies to estimate duration of the study; and

estimate a time to completion for the study based upon the estimated time to field and the estimated duration.

Assignments (2)
GRANT OF SECURITY INTEREST IN PATENT RIGHTS Recorded Mar 9, 2026
From: USERZOOM TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
To: MS PRIVATE CREDIT ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES LLC, AS COLLATERAL AGENT
Reel/Frame 075065/0638 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded May 8, 2024
From: IBAÑEZ, JORDI; MIGUEL, LAURA BERNABE; PASCUAL, DAVID TORRES; MESTRES, XAVIER
To: USERZOOM TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Reel/Frame 067351/0915 →
Continuity (5)
Continuation In Part 18344538 · Jun 29, 2023
Continuation 17750283 · May 20, 2022
Continuation 17063368 · Oct 5, 2020
Provisional Application 62913142 · Oct 9, 2019
Related Publication 20240177204A1 · May 30, 2024
References Cited (124)
US 4845665A · Heath et al. · 1989 [cited by applicant]
US 5041972A · Frost · 1991 [cited by applicant]
US 5086393A · Kerr · 1992 [cited by applicant]
US 5220658A · Kerr · 1993 [cited by applicant]
US 5724262A · Ghahramani · 1998 [cited by applicant]
US 5808908A · Ghahramani · 1998 [cited by applicant]
US 6237138B1 · Hameluck · 2001 [cited by applicant]
US 6370573B1 · Bowman-Amuah · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 6526392B1 · Dietrich · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 6526526B1 · Dong · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 6738082B1 · Dong et al. · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 6859784B1 · Van Duyne et al. · 2005 [cited by applicant]
US 6895437B1 · Cowdrey · 2005 [cited by applicant]
US 7222078B2 · Abelow · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 7433874B1 · Wolfe · 2008 [cited by applicant]
US 7587484B1 · Smith · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 7917491B1 · Sack · 2011 [cited by examiner]
US 7941525B1 · Yavilevich · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 8170971B1 · Wilson · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 8892543B1 · Kapoor · 2014 [cited by applicant]
US 9535902B1 · Michalak · 2017 [cited by examiner]
US 10178190B2 · Qiao · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 10691583B2 · Mestres et al. · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 10963808B1 · Kumari · 2021 [cited by applicant]
US 11068374B2 · Mestres et al. · 2021 [cited by applicant]
US 11348148B2 · Mestres et al. · 2022 [cited by applicant]
US 11704705B2 · Mestres et al. · 2023 [cited by applicant]
US 20010049084A1 · Mitry · 2001 [cited by applicant]
US 20020069079A1 · Vega · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020103664A1 · Olsson · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020143931A1 · Smith · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020171677A1 · Stanford-Clark · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020178163A1 · Mayer · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020194053A1 · Barrett · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020196277A1 · Bushey · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20030028642A1 · Agarwal · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030036944A1 · Lesandrini · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030046057A1 · Okunishi · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030051031A1 · Streble · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030115333A1 · Cohen · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030154237A1 · Mah · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20030191795A1 · Bernardin · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20040015867A1 · Macko · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20040075685A1 · Ohyama · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20040122943A1 · Error · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20040177002A1 · Abelow · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20040210661A1 · Thompson · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20050182663A1 · Abraham-Fuchs · 2005 [cited by applicant]
US 20050254775A1 · Hamilton · 2005 [cited by applicant]
US 20060161553A1 · Woo · 2006 [cited by examiner]
US 20060184917A1 · Troan · 2006 [cited by applicant]
US 20060242154A1 · Rawat · 2006 [cited by applicant]
US 20070005417A1 · Desikan · 2007 [cited by examiner]
US 20070106641A1 · Chi · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 20070209010A1 · West · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 20070233622A1 · Willcok · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 20070255821A1 · Ge · 2007 [cited by examiner]
US 20080313149A1 · Li · 2008 [cited by applicant]
US 20080313617A1 · Zhu · 2008 [cited by applicant]
US 20080313633A1 · Zhu · 2008 [cited by applicant]
US 20090112685A1 · Tunguz-Zawislak · 2009 [cited by examiner]
US 20090138292A1 · Dusi · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090150724A1 · Pramidi · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090204267A1 · Sustaeta · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090204573A1 · Neuneier · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090271788A1 · Holt · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090281819A1 · Garg · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20090281852A1 · Abhari et al. · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20100004951A1 · Alves et al. · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100030792A1 · Swinton et al. · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100083130A1 · Oi · 2010 [cited by examiner]
US 20100095208A1 · White et al. · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100114654A1 · Lukose · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100114666A1 · Brierley · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100121684A1 · Morio · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100205541A1 · Rapaport · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100228580A1 · Zoldi · 2010 [cited by examiner]
US 20100251291A1 · Pino, Jr. et al. · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20100332582A1 · Chen · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20110069821A1 · Korolev · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20110166884A1 · Lesselroth · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20110208822A1 · Rathod · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20110307340A1 · Benmbarek · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20110314092A1 · Lunt et al. · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20120041838A1 · Serbanescu · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20120072232A1 · Frankham · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20120078660A1 · Mangicaro · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20120131476A1 · Mestres et al. · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20120210209A1 · Biddle · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20120278388A1 · Kleinbart · 2012 [cited by applicant]
US 20130035985A1 · Gilbert · 2013 [cited by applicant]
US 20130132833A1 · White · 2013 [cited by applicant]
US 20130159317A1 · Huang · 2013 [cited by examiner]
US 20130254735A1 · Sakhardande · 2013 [cited by applicant]
US 20140052853A1 · Mestres · 2014 [cited by applicant]
US 20140068407A1 · Suh · 2014 [cited by examiner]
US 20140189054A1 · Snider et al. · 2014 [cited by applicant]
US 20150081279A1 · Suleman · 2015 [cited by examiner]
US 20160217481A1 · Pastore · 2016 [cited by applicant]
US 20170228745A1 · Garcia et al. · 2017 [cited by applicant]
US 20180286428A1 · Seider · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20190171187A1 · Cella · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190179903A1 · Terry · 2019 [cited by examiner]
US 20190258671A1 · Bou · 2019 [cited by examiner]
US 20210233031A1 · Preuss · 2021 [cited by examiner]
US 20210304232A1 · Litman · 2021 [cited by examiner]
AU 2015101408 · 2015 [cited by applicant]
WO WO2001024057 · 2001 [cited by applicant]
F Rimbach et al. (Internet Marketing for Profit Organizations: A framework for the implementation of strategic internet marketing)—2010—pearl.plymouth.ac.uk (Year: 2010). [cited by examiner]
R Oentaryo, EP Lim, M Finegold, D Lo, F Zhu (Detecting click fraud in online advertising: a data mining approach)—Learning Research, 2014—dl.acm.org (Year: 2014). [cited by examiner]
Carroll, Marty, “Usability and Web analytics: ROI justification for an Internet strategy,” Interactive Marketing, vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 223-234, The Usability Company, Jan./Mar. 2003 (Year: 2003). [cited by examiner]
User-Centred Library Websites: Usability Evaluation Methods by Carole George, Edition:2008. [cited by applicant]
Richard Atterer, Monika Wnuk, and Albrecht Schmidt (Knowing the User's Every Move-User Activity Tracking for Website Usability Evaluation and Implicit Interaction, International World Wide Web Conference Committee, May … [cited by applicant]
Jason I. Hong, Jeffrey Heer, Sarah Waterson, and James A. Landay (WebQuilt: a Proxy-based Approach to Remote Web Usability Testing, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, vol. 19, No. 3, Jul. 2001, pp. 263-285). (Year… [cited by applicant]
ISA/US, “Notification of Transmittal of the ISR and the Written Opinion of the International Searching Authority, or the Declaration,” in PCT Application No. PCT/US2020/012218, May 28, 2020, 9 pages. [cited by applicant]
ISA/US, “Notification of Transmittal of the ISR and the Written Opinion of the International Searching Authority, or the Declaration,” in PCT Application No. PCT/US2020/054439, Feb. 8, 2021, 8 pages. [cited by applicant]
Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Daniel S. Weld, Jacob O. Wobbrock et al. (Automatically generating personalized user interfaces with Supple, Artificial Intelligence 174 (2010) 910-950). (Year: 2010). [cited by applicant]
Marco Comerio et al. (Web Service Contracts: Specification, Selection and Composition, Ph.D. Dissertation)). (Year: 2008). [cited by applicant]
Atterer R et al. : “Knowing the User's Every Move-User Activity Tracking for Website Usability Evaluation and Implicit Interaction,” WWW '06 Proceedings of the 15th World Wide Web, ACM, New York, NY, USA, May 22, 2006, … [cited by applicant]
European Patent Office, “Communication pursuant to Art. 153(7) EPC”, in European Application No. 20747572.4, Sep. 20, 2022, 9 pages. [cited by applicant]
Desolda Guiseppe: “UTAssistant: a Web Platform Supporting Usability Testing in Italian Public Administrations”, In DCPD@ CHItaly, Sep. 1, 2017 (Sep. 1, 2017), XP055959540, Retrieved from the Internet: URL:http://ceur-ws… [cited by applicant]
Saqer Haneen et al: “Expanding the Usability Toolkit: Using PowerPoint(TM) to Perform Website Analysis and Testing”, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, vol. 56, No. 1, Sep. 1, 2012 (… [cited by applicant]
Lenin Nair: “How to Record Your Website Visitors & Their Actions With a Session Replay Tool”, Aug. 16, 2018 (Aug. 16, 2018), XP055960089, Retrieved from the Internet: URL:https://web.archive.org/web/20180816194508/https… [cited by applicant]
European Patent Office, “Communication pursuant to Art. 153(7) EPC”, in European Application No. 20875145.3, Jul. 17, 2023, 8 pages. [cited by applicant]