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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Towards Web Macros:

 Automating Common Tasks

on the Web Alex Safonov, Joseph A. Konstan,

John V. Carlis

University of Minnesota

Department of Computer Science and

Engineering

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

 Automatable Web Tasks:

ExamplesOn-line flight reservations

 – NWA, Internet Travel Network, etc.

 – multiple, “equivalent” airports(SFO/SJC/OAK)

Cited reference search

 – re-run for each database, merge results

 – plug found citations into full-text DL

Persistent shopping cart

 – multi-vendor?

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

 Actions to automate

Navigation; form filling and submission;

user authentication

Iteration over multiple informationservices

 – integrate results

Connecting services “back-to-back” 

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Vision of a Solution:

Web MacrosClient-side programs that:

 – Emulate user actions on the Web

 – Can be created by end users 

Requirements for Web Macros

 – infer navigation and control

 – support parameters

 – deal with dynamic, unstructured data

 – maintain the browsing context

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Related Work

Internet Scrapbook

 – Sugiura and Koseki, UIST 98

InfoBeans

 – Bauer and Dengler, IUI 99

 AgentSoft’s LiveAgent 

WebL

 – Kistler and Marais, WWW7

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Proxy-based Prototype

Special URLs http://macros/...

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

“Get me here” Web macros 

Goal: re-establish browsing context

 – authentication, hidden form fields, cookies

Iteratively generates and test macros

 – from longer history segments

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Get me to:

Housing Search Results

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Future Work

Concrete plans

 – intelligently comparing Web pages

 – let users specify start and end of macro

 – update macros based on playback

“deviations” 

Neat ideas – use browsing history for improving macros

 – visual manipulation environment for Web

macros

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Conclusion

Why automate common tasks

Requirements and our prototype

system

Goals

 – A free system for automating Web tasks by

end-users

 – Extensions to Programming by

Demonstration techniques for the Web

 – Recommendations for content developers

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HFWEB  June 3, 1999 

Existing Tools

Bookmarks/favorites

 – record static URLs only

Server-based Tools

 – comparison shopping services; auction

proxies; customizable home pages

 – limited flexibility: user is not in control• competing services are excluded