US Patent 10593319 Parallelization of instruction steps

Described are techniques for providing steps of an instruction group in an order easily performable by a user operating a voice user interface. A system receives a command from a user to output an instruction group. The system obtains the instruction group and processes the instruction group to determine steps within the instruction group that may be performed in parallel by one or more users. Such determination may involve, for example, determining conditional words or phrases such as “meanwhile,” “while you are,” etc. within the instruction group; determining a number of users performing the instruction group; or determine a type of user performing the instruction group. Once the steps that may be performed in parallel are determined, the system generates a prompt to the user indicating the steps may be performed in parallel, and optionally requesting user instruction regarding an order in which the user wants to perform the steps.