GB2495280A - Weighting of catalogue content in user interface - Google Patents

Abstract

A user interface for an electronic catalogue, for selecting and/or modifying the data displayed on the visual display unit (12), and weighting means associated with the database and the human interface (18, 24, 26); wherein the weighting means assigns different biases to different items within the database so that items with a greater bias are preferentially displayed on the visual display unit (12) in response to cues received by the human interface (18, 24, 26). The display may include several screens, and may use a touch sensitive screen, microphone, camera and proximity sensor to gain clues about the user and therefore present preferred content to the user. Body movements or voice commands may be used as inputs, and a stereoscopic set of cameras may be used to recognize the proximity and movement of the user, to determine the gender, age or size of the user and target product adverts from the catalogue to the user, based on statistical trends, or season.

Description

INTERACTIVE USER INTERFACES

Description;

This invention relates to an interactive user interface and in particular, without limitation, to an interactive user interface suitable for use in retailing of goods and services.

Computerised/interactive retail platforms have been available for some time and have become particularly prevalent in the internet age whereby users have become accustomed to searching for products and services online and buying them online also. In recent years, there has been a move towards combining online retail services with in-store retailing such that a user can search for products online, but present at a store in-person to view, purchase and collect the products in question.

Online/interactive retailing has become extremely sophisticated in recent years, especially since the advent of broadband Internet which has enabled online or store-based retailers to display multimedia content about the products on sale in parallel with product datasheets and other downloadable information so that users can learn about the products they intend to buy in greater detail before committing to a purchasing decision.

In many respects, customers have come to expect online retailers to provide such information and failure to do so can cause customers to shop elsewhere. As such, retailers have to develop increasingly sophisticated retail systems both online and in-store to attract and retain customers.

Some of the known drawbacks of existing e-commerce systems include apparently complicated user interfaces, which sometimes require a minimum level of computing skills to operate, and a somewhat linear presentation of content, which makes it difficult to select and compare products from a large catalogue.

User interfaces are constantly being adapted to address the aforementioned issues, e.g. by improving the GUI and by moving towards touch-screen technology (rather than a traditional mouse or pointing device), and by incorporating sophisticated filters to help narrow-down the choice of goods that are viewable.

As more and more retailers move towards catalogue-based retailing, i.e. in which the goods themselves are warehoused or stored out of sight, but whereby goods can be viewed using a paper-or computer-based catalogue in the store front, there is an ever increasing need to improve the presentation of information and the usability of the catalogue itself.

Moreover, in such situations, there needs to be a greater level of integration between the stock-control and display aspects of retailing if customers are to be able to make real-time purchases of goods actually in stock at a particular instant, using electronic catalogues.

This invention aims to provide a solution to one or more of the above problems and/or to provide an improved user interface for an electronic catalogue.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a user interface for an electronic catalogue, the user interface comprising; a processor; a data storage device for storing at least one database representative of the electronic catalogue; means to enable the processor to read date form and/or write data to the at least one database, and a visual display unit communicating with the processor for displaying content about items in the catalogue; a human interface by which users can interact with the processor for selecting and/or modifying the data displayed on the visual display unit, and weighting means associated with the database and the human interface; wherein the weighting means assigns different biases to different items within the database so that items with a greater bias are preferentially displayed on the visual display unit in response to cues received by the human interface.

The visual display unit preferably comprises a screen or a plurality of screens. The screen is preferably a touch sensitive screen and the human interface may additionally comprise a microphone, a camera, and/or a proximity sensor. Where provided, the camera may interface with the processor via a machine vision processor configured to distinguish

between people and the background of a scene.

The user interface is responsive to cues received from users. Cues may be detected using the human interface, such as via a machine vision processor adapted to detect the presence (or absence) of a person in the locality. The machine vision processor may be configured to recognise attributes of users, such as height, approximate weight, gender, age etc. The cues may comprise: identifying the gender, age and/or size of a user using visual information from the camera or cameras; identifying the gender and/or age of user using audio information from the microphone; the user preferentially selecting items within different product, price, size, promotion, vendor, supplier and/or manufacturer categories; the detection of general trends in user behaviours; and/or the detection of general trends in user behaviours according to time of day, day of week, month and/or season.

The human interface and/or machine vision processor, where provided, are preferably adapted to recognise gestures and body movements of a person in the vicinity of user interface as commands for the processor.

The human interface may further comprise a voice command recognition processor adapted to interpret voice commands spoken by a user in the vicinity of the user interface as commands for the processor.

The proximity sensor, where provided, may comprise a plurality of spaced apart cameras and a stereoscopic machine vision processor adapted recognise the proximity and movements of a user in three-dimensional space.

A speaker is preferably provided for providing audible feedback to users of the interface.

The database preferably comprises, or links to, embedded multimedia content associated with items within the database, which multimedia content can be displayed user interface. The user interface preferably comprises a graphical user interface displayable on the visual display unit. A user is thus preferably able to interact with the graphical user interface, and control the processor to access different items in the database using gestures, voice commands and/or screen touches.

According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a system architecture for a user interface comprising core system elements and libraries associated with the core system elements, the core system elements comprising; an operating framework shell providing a hardware interface comprising hardware device drivers, and the libraries comprising databases of data to be represented by the user interface, templates for formatting and structuring the data to be represented by the user interface, wherein the operating framework shell further comprises plug-in compatibility modules and the libraries comprise plug-in adapters to enable non-native applications to interface with the core system elements and/or to interact directly with the hardware.

The system architecture is preferably implemented on a network-based architecture.

The core software elements may comprise display drivers; sound drivers; touch screen device drivers; templates; a client foundation module; an application module; and a plurality of interconnected libraries; a data repository; a resource provider; an in-memory session server; and means for preferentially weighting certain items in the data repository according to received cues.

The libraries may comprise; a user interface library; a networking library; a data access library; and a utility library.

The data repository may comprise a database designed around standard retail terminology, attribute data structures associated with data content, and sort/category

attribute fields.

The system architecture preferably comprises video analytics for creating and storing anonymous statistics about users.

The user interface of the first aspect of the invention is preferably implemented on a system architecture according to the second aspect of the invention.

Preferred embodiments of the invention shall now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic of a retail-type, electronic catalogue incorporating a user interface according to the first aspect of the invention; Figure 2 is a schematic system architecture according the second aspect of the invention; Figure 3 is a schematic of a client-based application system architecture; and Figure 4 is a schematic of a server foundation for a server-based application.

In Figure 1, an electronic catalogue suitable for use in a retail environment is shown 10, which comprises a large display screen 12 mounted on a wall 14. Users 16 are able to interact with the electronic catalogue 10 by walking up to it and controlling it using gestures and voice commands. Catalogue 10 as a pair of space-apart cameras 18 located on either side of the screen 12 to provide a stereoscopic view of the retail environment 20 in the vicinity of the catalogue. Screen 12 has a touch-sensitive sensor built into its outer surface enabling users 16 to control a graphical user interface displayed on the screen 12 by touching the screen 12. The touch-sensitive sensor interfaces with a processor 22 via a device driver, which is configured to recognise the point on the screen where it has been touched by a user 16 in addition to other gestures, such as swiping up, down, left and right (to indicate scrolling), flicking (to indicate moving rapidly from one item to the next) or the relative position of two points touched on the screen simultaneously (to indicate zooming in and out).

The cameras 18 interface with the processor 22 via a further device driver and an object recognition algorithm, which is configured to distinguish between people 16 and the background/general vicinity 20. Using a movement recognition algorithm, "contactless" gestures made by users 16 can be recognised, such as movement of the arms, movement of the person 16 forwards, backwards, left and right, etc, which movements can all be interpreted as commands inputted into the graphical user interface or ignored depending on context. Because there are two cameras 18, the processor 22 is able to utilise parallax/stereoscopic vision to detect movement towards or away from the screen 12 and rotational movements about a substantially fixed point in space.

Furthermore, the catalogue 10 comprises a number of directional microphones 24, which also interface with the processor 22 to enable the graphical user interface to be controlled using voice commands. Moreover, because there are a number of microphones present, the processor is able to locate the origin of the voice commands and correlate those commands to users 16 it can "see" using cameras 18.

The catalogue 10 additionally comprises stereo speakers 26 located either side of the screen 12 to provide audible feedback to the user 16, such as sounds associated with various commands, e.g. "swoosh" and "click" sounds that are already familiar to users of digital technology. The main function of the audible feedback provided by the speakers is to reassure users 16 that commands have been successfully received/interpreted.

In one specific example of the invention, in this case in a retail environment, the catalogue 10 when idle is configured to display on screen 12 multimedia information and/or advertisements about products on sale. Whilst the catalogue 10 is idle, the cameras 18 are scanning the vicinity 20 of the catalogue 10 for movement and/or the presence of potential users 16. when a potential user 16 approaches the screen 12 within a predetermined distance, the processor will begin to analyse the image of the person in front of the screen 12 to determine a number of basic attributes of that users 16. For example, it might detect that the user is more than 1.5 m tall, and will therefore assume that the user is an adult and will begin to filter the content of its database to items that may be of particular interest to adults.

The processor 22 will then display a number of items in different categories on the screen 12, for example, a selection of footwear items, a selection of clothing items, a selection of sporting equipment items and a selection of potential gift items. The user 16 may then make a selection from the displayed groups of items most closely matching what he/she was looking for. Such a selection may be made by touching the appropriate part of the screen 12, by waving towards it all by otherwise indicating using a body gesture. Once a particular category of goods has been selected by the user 16, a further subset of categories of products within that major group will then be displayed and the user can select a subcategory of products he/she was looking for. The process of narrowing down the selection of potential items will continue until the user 16 has selected one item, or a very small number of items, which can then be explored in greater detail.

Whilst this is happening, the processor 22 will be "learning" and adapting to the user's behaviour patterns and will be modifying the types of items it is displaying depending on the user's preferences. In the case of the present invention, it is the weighting means that is employed to do this and this is accomplished by assigning a nominal score to certain types of items within the database depending on the frequency, speed etc that items have been selected previously. The process of filtering the items in the database from a very large number to a much smaller, user-specific number of items, greatly simplifies the process of selecting items to be viewed further/purchased thereby facilitating the selection of products from a relatively large catalogue.

An advantage of the system is that it enables the processor 22 to understand behaviour patterns of the user and to implement the detected behaviour patterns in its weighting/filtering methodology. For example, the processor 22 may detect that the user favours lower cost items, or items on "special offer" and will therefore preferentially display low-cost items on the screen 12. In addition, if the processor 22 detects that the user 16 may be wishing to buy a number of items, it may suggest other items to buy that could be cross-sold in a promotional manner. The great flexibility of the system is that it may enable bespoke promotions to be created on an individual user basis, rather than on a global basis, enabling cross-selling across different categories of goods, for example clothing, kitchenware and hardware items.

Once a particular item in the catalogue has been selected by a user 16, the user 16 is able to drill-down to obtain further information about the item. For example, the catalogue may contain multimedia information about products such as photographs, digital representations, sounds and video content that can be explored by the user 16 using gestures. The catalogue may also contain datasheets corresponding to items within it that the user 16 can read and explore, e.g. to obtain lists of features/benefits of the item in question. In one particular example, footwear, the user 16 could be presented with an image of the footwear on the screen 12, which could be rotated and zoomed using gestures. A sidebar is also displayed on the screen 12 could show information such as the sizes that are available, the instantaneous stock level of the item and the approximate delivery time should the user 16 choose to purchase the item. A further sidebar could show equivalent/alternative items in the event that the stock level is below a predetermined level or the availability is limited, which alternatives the user could select and interrogate in a similar manner.

The processor may detect general trends in user behaviours such as "popular" items at certain times of day or during different seasons. The general trends detected could be fed into the weighting means to bias subsequent searches towards that product thereby potentially speeding up subsequent users' arrival at those popular items.

Another of the main advantages of the invention is that it enables the catalogue to be adapted in real-time in response to transient consumer behaviours. In addition, it provides a much richer user experience, which could attract customers. Moreover, the time each user needs to spend interrogating the catalogue to arrive at the products required can be significantly reduced, thereby potentially increasing the speed of the transaction enabling more customers to use the system within a given time period.

At the heart of the invention is a novel framework designed to provide a foundation for the development of interactive experience applications to enable customers to explore a greater product range than can be held in store, view additional information about the products and access social media with functionality related to the products. There are two main aspects to the invention, namely the physical hardware, which enables users to interact in an integrated way with the catalogue, and the catalogue itself which comprises a number of nested libraries/databases which interact with one another to provide an improved user experience. The combination of the hardware and back-end software enables a range of functionality to be built into the system.

The catalogue itself is preferably implemented on a network-based architecture and comprises core software elements that interact with the hardware and the master database, and a plurality of drivers/sub-modules that enable third-party applications to interact with the core software elements.

In one particular example, the core software elements may comprise display drivers to enable content to be displayed on the screen 12, which interact with third-party plug-ins that enable a range of picture/video formats to be seamlessly displayed on the screen 12.

Furthermore, because the catalogue is implemented on a network) it is possible for third-party providers to add items to the database and/or to plug-in their own proprietary software/media that can be implemented on the system 10. As such, the system enables a number of third-party providers to advertise/retail their products via a common "storefront" thereby separating the "front of house" retailing operations from the warehousing/ordering/manufacturing/delivery operations.

In addition, because the system 10 is network-based, it becomes possible for third-party transaction processors to be implemented enabling users 16 to pay for the products they select using a range of payment methods, such as traditional bank account debiting, charging to a store card, or paying via an Internet-based payment transaction processor.

Similarly, third-party product providers could implement their own loyalty schemes on the system 10 to enable users 16 to collect "loyalty points" for the products they buy and also to enable the third-party product provider concerned to collect information about the purchasing habits of the users 16.

All this is possible because of the unique system architecture of the invention which permits external providers to plug-in their own product/retail elements into the core software elements.

The core software elements themselves may comprise templates that third-party providers could be obliged to follow to create a more seamless and integrated system thereby maintaining a common "theme" to the retail experience.

Advantageously, by providing core software elements and a library of driver plug-ins, the system provides a sound foundation for further software development enabling future modifications and improvements to be implemented much more quickly and robustly.

Moreover, because the core software elements have been rigorously tested, the overall quality and reliability of the system may be improved.

The core software elements of the system include a client foundation module, an application module and a number of libraries that interact with each other.

As shown in Figure 2, the system architecture 50 comprises core software elements 52, which include a client shell 54 containing a bootstrapper 56 that interacts with a client foundation 58 and a number of controllers 60. The controllers 60 provide the operative functionality for the hardware itself (e.g. the screen 12, the cameras 18, the speakers 26, the microphones 24) and include graphics drivers such as a 3-D renderer & a video server 64, a touch-screen driver 66 for the screen 12, processor drivers 68, document parsers 10, and other hardware drivers 72. The controllers 60 also include plug-ins 74 they carry out operations such as configuring the system 76, data logging 78, object state sensing 80 and session logging 82.

The client foundation 58 interfaces with various user interface libraries 82, networking libraries 84 (which enable the system 10 to be implemented across a network), data access libraries 86 (which contain catalogues of items for sale, for example) and utility libraries 88 (which provide multimedia functionality etc).

The client foundation provides the application start-up functionality and loads the core services and required application modules (which are specified in the application configuration file). The system 10 provides two foundations, namely one for client applications and one for server applications.

In one specific embodiment of the invention, the client foundation is built using the Microsoft RTM prism 4 framework and unity IOC container. Client foundation creates the application window and provides a shell of the module to load its user interface into.

Foundation loads the model specified in its configuration and uses its bootstrap functionality to create the registered types and start the module.

The foundation promotes decoupled event-driven modules where controllers are responsible for different parts of the system and communicate with each other using the Prism event dispatcher. The foundation includes call controllers for touch/gesture functions, window management, user interface management, 3-D rendering and video analytics. These can be overridden and additional controllers added as required in the module to provide application-specific functionality. The foundation also provides a set of core events communicating between the controllers and to other elements of the system, for example input events and notification of session state changes.

The client foundation also provides a data repository to manage access to the database and provide caching of data query results, a resource provider to manage access to localised resource strings, and in-memory session server which caches session data and manages communication with a central session server. The client foundation also includes the means for weighting in the form of a weighting table, which manages product display biases within the system. The client foundation also manages the connection of the system to external services such as the session server and configurations server whilst also providing the core graphics functionality required by the display screen 12 in the form of a 3- 0 rendering engine.

As previously mentioned, the system can be implemented as a client application or as a server application, and in the case of a In Figure 3, it can be seen that the bootstrap 56 of the client shell 54 interfaces with an application module 90. The application module 90 handles the controls 92 (e.g. the users gestures and screen touches), the templates 94 (which define the overall "theme" of the graphical user interface), images 96 and videos 98 displayable on the screen 12, resource dictionaries 100 (containing data about the products), navigation applications 102 (which enable the system 10 to navigate between the various parts of the databases), and the various device controllers 104. The application module 90 also interfaces with the utility libraries 88, the data access libraries 86, the networking libraries 84, and the user interface libraries 82 previously described.

In a server-based application, a server foundation as illustrated in Figure 4, comprises a server shell 106 that interacts with the plug-ins 74, the utility libraries 88, the networking libraries 84, and the data access libraries 86 within a Windows service shell 108.

Also at the core of the system 10 are data services that consist of content databases and application services that enable data from the databases to be accessed. The databases are designed in such a way as to be generic for any interactive experience application and not to require application-specific tables. The data is designed around standard retail terminology such as models, articles and SKUs that should be applicable to most retail situations. The databases also contain extensive attribute data structures associated with data content (such as marketing information and product descriptions) in addition to other attribute fields within a database which can be used to sort/categorise the data within the database according to product types etc to create a hierarchical data structure. The inclusion of detailed attribute fields enables the data within the database to be restructured relatively easily, in particular in response to biases introduced by the weighting table. Preferably, the database contains text string information that can be readily translated to "localise" the system so that it can be implemented in different language settings.

Networking libraries 84 provide networking services of the application server to allow different client applications to connect to the server foundation and discover the services available in the plug-in controller. The network libraries 84 also enable network demands to be stacked thereby managing the process communication, such as communication with the graphics driver, which runs a separate process. The network libraries 84 additionally provide automatic discovery of services without the need for complex configuration settings to be imported.

The user interface libraries 82 provide the controls and extensions that can be used with the application module itself. For example, a range of layouts may be implemented on screen 12 such as video content nested within text, thumbnail views of multiple items, custom Windows and various visual effects.

The touch provider 66 delivers the touchscreen functionality required by the system enables a user 12 interface with the system 10 in a reliable and predictable manner. It also compensate for errors, e.g. multiple simultaneous screens touches, poor calibration Etc. It also coordinates the conversion of physical touch coordinates to application-specific coordinates across multiple screens 12 and compensating for "dead areas", such as bezels interposed between screens 12.

3-D rendering 62 is provided using generic interface wrappers to manage calls the application framework for 3-D rendering engine. The 3-0 renderer 62 is configured to provide graphic rendering on screens 12 in addition to compensating for variations in ambient lighting camera settings etc. Core processing functionality 68 includes video analytics that creates anonymous statistics about people interacting with the system 10 for reporting purposes and also to adjust the biases within the weighting system. For example, the system can notify data such as the ratio of male to female users and allow the weighting table to adjust the biases within the database accordingly.

Gesture recognition is accomplished using proprietary software, such as PrimeSense, which uses the cameras 18 and translates detect movement into control commands for the system 10.

The video server 64 provides multiscreen display functionality which is important where a particularly large screen is desired, which comprises a number of clustered screens located side-by-side.

Whilst the invention has been described in the context of a retailing system, it is not limited to retail applications and could be used in other situations such as the provision of services or the management of large databases, such as health and tax record databases.

The main advantages of the invention are an improved, richer and more interactive user experience enabling data within a database to be accessed easily without the use of the keyboard/mouse and in an optimised manner whereby items likely to be of great interest are presented in preference to items likely to be of lesser relevance.

The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiments for example where proprietary applications and plug-ins have been described, alternative applications/plug-ins may be used as the technology involved advances.

Claims (1)

1. <claim-text>Claims: 1. A user interface for an electronic catalogue, the user interface comprising; a processor; a data storage device for storing at least one database representative of the electronic catalogue; means to enable the processor to read date form and/or write data to the at least one database, and a visual display unit communicating with the processor for displaying content about items in the catalogue; a human interface by which users can interact with the processor for selecting and/or modifying the data displayed on the visual display unit, and weighting means associated with the database and the human interface; wherein the weighting means assigns different biases to different items within the database so that items with a greater bias are preferentially displayed on the visual display unit in response to cues received by the human interface.</claim-text> <claim-text>2. A user interface as claimed in claim 1, wherein the visual display unit comprises a screen or a plurality of screens.</claim-text> <claim-text>3. A user interface as claimed in claim 2, wherein human interface comprises any one or more of the group comprising: a touch sensitive screen, a microphone, a camera, and a proximity sensor.</claim-text> <claim-text>4. A user interface as claimed in claim 2, wherein the camera interfaces with the processor via a machine vision processor configured to distinguish between people and thebackground of a scene.</claim-text> <claim-text>5. A user interface as claimed in claim 4, wherein one of the cues comprises the machine vision processor detecting the presence of a person in the vicinity of the user interface.</claim-text> <claim-text>6. A user interface as claimed in claim 5, wherein one of the cues comprises the machine vision processor detecting the movement of a person in the vicinity of the user interface.</claim-text> <claim-text>7. A user interface as claimed in any of claims 4, 5, or 6, wherein the machine vision processor comprises a gesture recognition processor adapted to interpret body movements of a person in the vicinity of user interface as commands for the processor.</claim-text> <claim-text>8. A user interface as claimed in any of claims 3 to 7, wherein further comprising a voice command recognition processor adapted to interpret voice commands spoken by a user in the vicinity of the user interface as commands for the processor.</claim-text> <claim-text>9. A user interface as claimed in any of claims 3 to 8, wherein the proximity sensor comprises a plurality of spaced apart cameras and a stereoscopic machine vision processor adapted recognise the proximity and movements of a user in three dimensional space.</claim-text> <claim-text>10. A user interface as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising a speaker.</claim-text> <claim-text>11. A user interface as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the cues comprise any one or more of the group comprising: identifying the gender, age and/or size of a user using visual information from the camera or cameras; identifying the gender and/or age of user using audio information from the microphone; the user preferentially selecting items within different product, price, size, promotion, vendor, supplier and/or manufacturer categories; the detection of general trends in user behaviours; and the detection of general trends in user behaviours according to time of day, day of week, month and/or season.</claim-text> <claim-text>12. A user interface as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein one of the cues comprises detecting no potential users within the vicinity of the user interface.</claim-text> <claim-text>13. A user interface as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the database comprises, or links to, embedded multimedia content associated with items within the database, which multimedia content can be displayed user interface.</claim-text> <claim-text>14. A user interface as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the processor comprises a graphical user interface displayable on the visual display unit.</claim-text> <claim-text>15. A user interface as claimed in claim 14, wherein a user is able to interact with the graphical user interface, and thus control the processor to access different items in the database using gestures, voice commands and/or screen touches.</claim-text> <claim-text>16. A system architecture for a user interface comprising core system elements and libraries associated with the core system elements, the core system elements comprising: an operating framework shell providing a hardware interface comprising hardware device drivers, and the libraries comprising databases of data to be represented by the user interface, templates for formatting and structuring the data to be represented by the user interface, wherein the operating framework shell further comprises plug-in compatibility modules and the libraries comprise plug-in adapters to enable non-native applications to interface with the core system elements and/or to interact directly with the hardware.</claim-text> <claim-text>17. A system architecture as claimed in claim 16, implemented on a network-based architecture.</claim-text> <claim-text>18. A system architecture as claimed in claim 16 or claim 17, wherein the core software elements comprise any one or more of the group comprising: display drivers; sound drivers; touch screen device drivers; templates; a client foundation module; an application module; and a plurality of interconnected libraries.</claim-text> <claim-text>19. A system architecture as claimed in any of claims 16, 17 or 18, wherein the libraries comprise any one or more of the group comprising: a user interface library; a networking library; a data access library; and a utility library.</claim-text> <claim-text>20. A system architecture as claimed in any of claims 16 to 19, wherein core system elements comprise any one or more of the group comprising: a data repository; a resource provider; an in-memory session server; and means for preferentially weighting certain items in the data repository according to received cues.</claim-text> <claim-text>21. A system architecture as claimed in claim 20, wherein the data repository comprises a database designed around standard retail terminology, attribute data structures associated with data content, and sort/category attribute fields.</claim-text> <claim-text>22. A system architecture as claimed in any of claims 16 to 21, further comprising video analytics for creating and storing anonymous statistics about users.</claim-text> <claim-text>23. A user interface according to any one of claims 1 to 15 implemented on a system architecture according to any one of claims 16 to 22.</claim-text> <claim-text>24. A user interface substantially as hereinbefore descried with reference to, and as illustrated in, Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings.</claim-text> <claim-text>25. A system architecture substantially as hereinbefore descried with reference to, and as illustrated in, Figures 2 to4 of the accompanying drawings.</claim-text>