Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-04
2004-10-05
Kincaid, Kristine (Department: 2174)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
active
06801227
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns a system and user interface supporting navigation and processing for use in a processing system such as a PC, server, networking device or other device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The management of information for medical purposes for use by physicians, hospital staff and other workers in the health care field poses a number of challenges. The information required by a physician, to optimize health care, is both varied in nature and in the sources from which it must be derived. A physician may typically need to have access to patient medical records, diagnostic images, diagnostic and dietary information systems, an appointment schedule, patient test results, medical literature, a prescription and drug interaction management system, insurance and billing information as well as a staff management system, for example. Access to such information and related services necessitate the use of a system including a communication platform supporting Internet operation and possibly local Intranet operation. Further, it is desirable that such a system for providing access to such an array of comprehensive information sources and related services should also provide a user interface that is suitable for use by a layman in the field and not require extensive operator training.
An Internet compatible health care management system needs to provide access to health care information and related services in the form of web page images derived from varied web sites via a user interface such as a web browser. Examples of web browser user interfaces include Microsoft Explorer or Netscape Navigator interfaces. Such browser interfaces are used for initiating acquisition of web pages that consist of passive information (e.g., text, images, and links to multimedia content including audio or video clips) and interactive items (e.g., involving data entry), and applications that can be launched (e.g., for home banking). Further, a browser interface supports user navigation both within an individual web page and between web pages, and also between web pages and applications. This is supported through the provision of links (usually underlined, or marked text or icons) or active map areas within a page. A page can also be sub-structured in a tabcard-like manner with tabs on top of each tabcard being used for grouping various topics, or lists of choices, etc. In addition, a browser interface supports user navigation within a history list of previously accessed URLs (Universal Resource Locators) and their corresponding web pages (e.g. via forward-backward symbol activation), and also via selection of preferred or stored links (e.g., favorites) of either the user or others. A web browser interface also typically may be used to select search engines for finding specific pages based on keyword search or other query based searches.
There are a number of difficulties encountered in navigating between web pages especially in those instances where large numbers of web pages are involved. The semantics of the relationship or hierarchy between the links is not well-defined (e.g., in a pure tree based hierarchy for subgrouping, sets of related information, etc). In this and in other types of navigation a user often maintains a sort of link hierarchy in his mind, perhaps supported by browser maintained history lists. Such a memory dependent approach often leads to failures and time-consuming new search attempts to already visited web pages. Another difficulty arises in the presentation of the web pages that have been previously acquired and that are available for display. Common disadvantages of currently used navigation systems include the fact that multiple URL (or other web page navigation representative lists) are presented to the user in a manner that does not reflect the organization a user desires for his particular task or application. Currently available tabcard interfaces are used for grouping multi-choice lists and are item-oriented (grouping similar or related items on one tabcard), rather than task or workflow oriented.
A system according to invention principles addresses these problems and derivative problems
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
A processing and user interface system supports network (including Internet or Intranet, for example) application and web page navigation for sequential task oriented processes, workflow management and user specific, customizable, interactive and other organisable processes. A network compatible user interface system supports a process including a sequence of subtasks. The system initiates display of a composite window representing a plurality of overlaid tabbed web page (or application) windows each including a visible tab incorporating an identifier identifying a function provided by a web page (or application interface display window) associated with a particular subtask of the sequence of subtasks. The visible tabs and corresponding overlaid tabbed windows are sequentially ordered in accordance with the sequence of subtasks. The system initiates display of a subtask web page (or application window) in the foreground of the composite window in response to user selection of a visible tab corresponding to the subtask web page or application window.
In a feature of the invention, a workflow sequence comprises a plurality of business or on-line education supporting tasks.
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Bocionek Siegfried
Singh Ajit
Burke Alexander J.
Kincaid Kristine
Nguyen Anh T.
Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Inc.
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