Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-07
2004-02-17
Sax, Steven (Department: 2174)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06693651
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of customer self service systems for resource search and selection, and more specifically, to a novel graphical user interface for such a system.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Currently there exist many systems designed to perform search and retrieval functions. These systems may be classified variously as knowledge management systems, information portals, search engines, data miners, etc. However, providing effective customer self service systems for resource search and selection presents several significant challenges. The first challenge for current systems with query capability is that serving queries intelligently requires a large amount of user supplied contextual information, while at the same time the user has limited time, patience, ability and interest to provide it. The second challenge is that searching without sufficient context results in a very inefficient search (both user time and system resource intensive) with frequently disappointing results (overwhelming amount of information, high percentage of irrelevant information). The third challenge is that much of a user's actual use and satisfaction with search results differ from that defined at the start of the search: either because the users behave contrary to their own specifications, or because there are other contextual issues at play that have not been defined into the search.
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) provide ways for users of computers and other devices to effectively communicate with the computer. In GUIs, available applications and data sets are often represented by icons consisting of small graphical representations which can be selected by a user and moved on the screen. The selection of icons often takes the place of typing in a command using a keyboard in order to initiate a program. In general, icons are tiny on-screen symbols that simplify functions like the access to a program, command, or data file. Icons are usually activated or selected by moving a mouse-controlled cursor onto the icon and pressing the mouse button.
GUIs for customer self service systems for resource search and selection have the potential to enable users to efficiently enter large amounts of contextual information. The prior art has addressed a 1:1 correspondence between a limited range of contextual variables and icons. A major limitation of these approaches is that they fail to address the full range of relevant user contextual variables as part of the query and require extensive time and patience on the part of the user to make even limited contextual selections. Another limitation of these approaches is that they lack the means to express the relevance of the results to a particular user's context, in terms beyond that of the results' content. Another limitation of these approaches is that they fail to provide for a graphical method of fine tuning the variables relevant to the search. These approaches do not provide an iconic interface for visualizing, manipulating, tuning and filtering the multidimensional context and content variables associated with selected resources returned by a search after a query. Users are forced to select from returned resources on the basis of content alone before they realize that the resources are not appropriate to the user's context.
As will be hereinafter explained in greater detail, some representative prior art search and retrieval systems implementing include U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,361 entitled “Search and Retrieval System”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,187 entitled “Worlds-Within-Worlds Nested Display and Interaction System and Method”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,516 entitled “System and Method for Visually Querying a Data Set Exhibited in a Parallel Coordinate System”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,608,899 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Searching a Database by Interactively Modifying a Database Query”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,578 entitled “User Interface for Information Retrieval System”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,841,437 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Interactive Database Queries via Movable Viewing Operation Regions”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,531 entitled “Method and Apparatus for a Slider”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,217 entitled “User Interface for a Financial Advisory System”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,501 entitled “Pictorial User Interface for Establishing Time of Day and Geographical or Environmental Context on a Computer Display or Other Monitor”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,178 entitled “Visualization of Information Using Graphical Representations of Context Vector Based Relationships and Attributes”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,661 entitled “System and Method for Automatic Analysis of Data Bases and for User-Controlled Dynamic Querying”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,386 entitled “Data Processing System Having Context Sensitive Visual Feedback for User Interface Controls and Method Therefor”.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,361 describes a text search and retrieval system which builds an index representing every word in stored files created by a variety of applications, searches for requested words using the index, ranks the files based on the relative strength of match with the search request and displays the ranked filenames for user selection.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,187 describes nested coordinate systems that are used for the display and manipulation of multivariate data in any field including science, engineering, economics, demographics, business, and finance. A first, inner coordinate system contains a display corresponding to a subset of the variables while the other variables are held constant. Each axis of a second, outer coordinate system is associated with an additional variable. The coordinates of a distinguished point in the first coordinate system (e.g., its origin) fix a value for each of the outer coordinate system's variables that is held constant within the inner coordinate system and its descendants for the evaluation of data displayed within them. Analogously, the second coordinate system may be recursively nested in one or more additional coordinate systems to allow the system to handle an arbitrary number of variables. Each coordinate system may be of arbitrary dimension, 1-, 2-, and 3-D coordinate systems being most familiar to a user. Although this patent deals with the display of, and interaction with, multidimensional data, the system described recursively nests additional dimensions and does not represent all dimensions simultaneously on the screen.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,516 is directed to a system for displaying a multi-variate data set in a plurality of multi-dimensional presentations on a computer having a graphical interface and a keyboard input.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,608,899 describes an apparatus for searching a database and modifying database queries including an approach to searching multidimensional data, e.g., by constructing a query from a sequential process of identifying constraints from bar, line, and pie charts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,578 describes an information retrieval system user interface for retrieving information from a plurality of sources and for storing information source descriptions in a knowledge base. The user interface includes a hypertext browser enabling a user to browse an unstructured information space and, a knowledge base browser/editor for displaying a directed graph representing a generalization taxonomy of the knowledge base, with the nodes representing concepts and edges representing relationships between concepts. The system also allows for querying a structured information source and using query results to focus the hypertext browser on the most relevant unstructured data sources.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,841,437 describes an information visualization system that uses dynamic queries in combination with movable viewing operation regions for searching of two dimensional databases.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,531 describes a system that has a graphical user interface GUI) that allows a user to readily define and manipulate using graphic slider controls a transform function from one attribute,
Biebesheimer Debra L.
Jasura Donn P.
Keller Neal M.
Oblinger Daniel A.
Podlaseck Mark E.
Morris, Esq. Daniel P.
Sax Steven
Scully Scott Murphy & Presser
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