Visualization of web sites and hierarchical data structures

A method of facilitating the visualization of a web site by a user, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

• (a) scanning the web site to generate a representation of the web site;
• (b) generating a graphical site map of the web site on a display screen of a computer using the representation generated in step (a) to enable the user to view a structural representation of the web site, the site map comprising a plurality of interconnected icons which represent content objects of the web site;
• and
• (c) providing a navigation interface which allows the user to interactively navigate the site map, the navigation interface including a zoom control which allows the user to interactively zoom in and out on user-selected portions of the map.

A method of facilitating the visualization of a web site, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

• identifying a hierarchy of content objects of the web site;
• and
• generating a graphical map of the hierarchy on a display screen, the graphical map comprising interconnected content object icons that represent respective content objects, the step of generating comprising:
• (a) identifying a parent content object ("parent") of the hierarchy that has multiple immediate children content objects ("children");
• (b) identifying the multiple immediate children of the parent identified in step (a);
• (c) positioning respective icons of the immediate children identified in step (b) around an icon of the parent identified in step (a) such that the icons of the children generally surround the icon of the parent within the map;
• and
• (d) repeating steps (a), (b) and (c) for each of a plurality of additional parents of the hierarchy that have multiple immediate children.

A method of generating a graphical map of a tree data structure on a display screen, the tree structure comprising a plurality of objects, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

• (a) representing the objects as respective icons within the map;
• (b) identifying, within the tree structure, a parent object ("parent") that has multiple immediate children objects ("children");
• (c) identifying the multiple immediate children of the parent identified in step (b);
• (d) positioning the respective icons of the immediate children identified in step (c) around the icon of the parent identified in step (b) on the display screen such that the icons of the children surround the icon of the parent within the map;
• (e) displaying a respective parent-child connection within the map between each child icon and the parent icon positioned in step (d);
• and
• (f) repeating steps (b), (c), (d) and (e) for each of a plurality of additional parents of the tree structure that have multiple immediate children.

A method of representing a hierarchical node-link structure on a display screen, comprising:

• (a) identifying a plurality of parent nodes of the structure that have multiple children nodes, including parent nodes at multiple different levels of the hierarchical structure;
• (b) positioning a parent node identified in step (a) on the display screen, and positioning the children nodes of the parent node around the parent node over an angular range which exceeds 180 degrees;
• and
• (c) repeating step (b) recursively for multiple additional parent nodes identified in step (a), including parent nodes at multiple different levels of the hierarchical structure;
• wherein the method produces a map which comprises a hierarchical arrangement of parent-child node clusters.

A method of graphically representing a web document on a display screen, the web document comprising a main document portion which comprises a plurality of links to a plurality of respective document components, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

• representing the main document portion as a first icon on the display screen;
• representing the plurality of document components as a plurality of respective additional icons that are positioned on the display screen generally around the first icons the step of representing comprising spacing each of the additional icons away from the first icon by substantially the same distance, and calculating said distance based at least in-plant on a total number of said document components;
• and
• representing each of the plurality of links as a respective interconnection between the first icon and a respective one of the additional icons.