Method to display and manage computer pop-up controls

Details Method to display and manage computer pop-up controls Method to display and manage computer pop-up controls

2001-12-18

2004-10-05

Nguyen, Cao (Kevin) (Department: 2173)

Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system

Display driving control circuitry

Controlling the condition of display elements

C345S215000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06801230

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the fields of operating systems, application software, and the positioning, formatting, and management of arbitrary pop-up controls to provide a more user-friendly computer human interface.
2. Description of the Prior Art
This invention deals with human-computer interface controls that are hereafter referred simply as controls. Controls are defined (Richard Simon, Windows 95, Win32 Programming API Bible, Book 1, 1996, p. 23) as graphic objects of the interface that enable the user to receive information from and provide input to the application. Each type of control is expressed by a graphic displayed on the CRT that provides the user with one or more function activations or attribute specifications. Since this invention is neither concerned with information received from or sent to the application nor with the functions requested or attributes specified as result of such information, the generic term “Service” will be employed to refer to whatever purpose a control serves.
Gittins (David Gittins, “Icon-based human-computer interaction”, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 1986, pp. 519-543) states that computer interface designers have a “ . . . tendency towards fixation on one particular design model “ . . . which can result in . . . technical constraints and design prejudices . . . that [can] be carried over to other applications . . . ”. Gittins further comments that this tendency may explain why many icon designs “bear striking . . . resemblance to . . . that of the Xerox ‘Star’” (pp. 521-522). Shneiderman (Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies For Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd ed, 1998) communicates that this tendency still prevails twelve years after Gittins since he can observe that “ . . . pull-down menus are constantly available to . . . the Xerox Star, Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh . . . and versions have become standardized with Windows, IBM OS/2, OSF/Motif.” (p. 242). While this trend is not universal, as shown by the NeXT workstation of the late 1980's, the prevailing menu design currently remains some variant of the pull-down style. It may be asked whether the current, nearly universal style of a permanent display at the top of the computer screen is the result of Gittins' observed design inertia or whether this design possesses uniquely desirable human factor merit. Main arguments in defense of the prevailing pull-down design are that novice users find the permanent display of choice-selections easy to learn and that all users benefit from rapid access once the fixed locations of choice-selections have become familiar. The prior art concedes that such permanent displays require substantial screen real estate but contends that the fixed, relative locations of choice-selections in the pop-up submenus present user-friendly capabilities to the user.
An appraisal of the prior art of control display identifies several weaknesses present in the prior art that lead to sub-optimum display and management of controls. One such weakness is inadequate provision for the user to easily consult a generally small screen area of specific interest while making selections from a control. Research by Scott (D. Scott and J. M. Findlay, “Optimum display arrangements for processing status information”, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 1991, pp. 399-407) investigates the benefits of displaying near the “point of regard” information needed to perform current activity. Shneiderman expands on desirable characteristics of pop-up control placement by contending that the pop-up controls should appear “ . . . close to the current focus . . . to limit eye motion, but far enough away to avoid obscuring the current focus.” (Shneiderman, op. cit., p. 453). The convention with pull-down designs is that the first submenu displayed is popped-up as a vertically aligned list of choice-selections (hereafter the Vertical-Linear format) immediately below the main menu selection. Each additional submenu is generally displayed abutting its parent submenu on the right. Study of placement strategies employed for display of other control types reveal that dialog boxes are typically displayed near the screen center irrespective of the location of the area of user interest. Closed combo boxes, which generally appear either in the toolbar or in a dialog box, drop-down their lists at the location of the parent graphic irrespective of the desirability of that location. In general, it must be concluded that the positioning strategy employed by current GUI designers give inadequate attention to user benefits that follow from juxtaposing the control and the area of user interest.
There does exist a class of pop-up controls unrelated to the pull-down menu that are not constrained by the traditions of the pull-down design. The Microsoft Windows context specific menu that displays when the user right-clicks on an identifiable screen object exemplifies this menu type. Conceptually this pop-up menu can be positioned anywhere within the “Display-zone”; i.e., the screen area into which a control is rendered. When space permits, Microsoft has chosen to position it with its top-left corner coincident with the cursor hot-spot. Since the screen object clicked is likely to be the area of current interest this display position often results in overlay of a portion of this area.
This invention differentiates between the concepts of the “Area of Current Focus” and the “Work-Area”. The area of current focus is the area of the screen that is the actual area of immediate concern to the user. The work-area is defined as a screen area identified by the Control Subsystem to be the user's area of current focus. Ideally the work-area and area of current focus coincide but exigencies of a user task do not always make this possible, as is elaborated later.
In addition to determining the desirability of displaying a control near to but not overlaying the area of current focus, human factor experts have found that users expect consistency in the performance of the GUI. Machiraju (Vijay Machiraju, “A survey on research in graphical user interfaces”, http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cachedpage/180180/4, 1996, pp. 1-25) reviews several authorities to conclude that a consistent GUI: (1) permits users to anticipate system behavior, (2) fulfills user expectations, (3) aids in the development of automaticity, (4) has extensive commonality between diverse applications, and (5) is natural to the user's way of thinking. Hix (Deborah Hix and R. Rex Hartison, Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Produce & Process, 1993) promotes the “principle of least astonishment” by contending that “ . . . consistency is one of the most significant factors affecting usability . . . [since] . . . users expect certain aspects of the interface to behave in certain ways, and when this does not happen, it can be very confusing.” (pp. 34-35). When vendors do design a control to pop-up near the work-area consistency is normally sought by locating the control via some relation based wholly on the work-area location. Alternate positioning processes are implemented when the standard positioning algorithm positions control at a location causing the display-zone to clip the control display. One approach that avoids clipping is to shift the display to make the clipped edge coincide with the display-zone edge causing the clip. Sun (Sun Microsystems and AT&T, Open Look: Graphical User Interface Functional Specifications, 1989, pp. 336-338) employs this approach but, as shown below, not in a manner that assures minimization of work-area overlay. An alternate algorithm might position a control to the left rather than the right of the work-area; an approach that violates the principle of least astonishment.
These inadequacies of the prior art may represent further manifestations of Gittins observation that designers fixate on a particular model. While the pull-down main menu and pop-u

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