User interface for electronic devices for controlling the displaying of long sorted lists

Abstract

In a user-interface application, a computing apparatus has a user-interface to assist the user in searching for information from a data array. In an example embodiment according to the present invention, the data array is an ordered list of addresses. In a UI so equipped, the user experiences a particular sequence of events. The user begins at a point on a list of addresses. After the user rotates a jog/shuttle knob, the list rolls down a low rate. As the user rotates the jog/shuttle knob further the scroll accelerates. After a predetermined time or number of items, a helper character is displayed. This character may represent a first letter of a name or a first digit of a telephone number. The UI displays the helper character to the user. The user continues to hold the position of the jog/shuttle knob until a help character, corresponding to his/her desired selection, appears. The user releases the jog/shuttle knob and may step through among a smaller group of data to locate the particular selection by incrementally rotating the knob from the neutral position.

Description

PRIORITY OF EARLIER APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit These devices may utilize a touch screen for enabling a user to interact with the apparatus. The system is operative to enable the user to select via the touch screen a portion of the image when displayed at a first scale. Upon the portion being selected the system renders the selected portion on the display at a second scale larger than the first scale (zoom-in). The portion selected corresponds to a touched location on the touch screen. The invention thus allows the user to perceive the graphical information of the image regardless of the display size. The change may be effected through animation. Animation is the simulation of movement created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames, e.g., bitmaps. For example, an image of the original page gradually develops in the zoomed in version of the area selected. Through the animation, the user perceives the development from one image to the other as a continuous transition. The invention is especially interesting to handhelds, such as PDA's, palmtops, mobile phones, web pads (thin clients with browsing capabilities), etc., because the size of a handheld's display is necessarily small due to the required form factor and weight limitation. The invention may also be implemented as a service such as on an Internet-enabled wireless handheld device. The list or array is residing at a server and the handheld is a client device that is enabled to interact with the remote server. Instead of scrolling visually through all items, the service now controls the device to display a meta item that is representative of the group of items currently being scrolled. Further information about graphical user interfaces (GUI) employed by the aforementioned devices may be found in a patent application titled, “Hand-Held with Auto-Zoom for Graphical Display of Web Page, Ser. No. 09/619,426 filed Jul. 19, 2000, incorporated by reference in its entirety herein.

Further information about a GUI that enables the user to negotiate data from a long sorted list may be found in a patent application titled, “Rapid Retrieval User Interface Designed Around Small Displays and Few Buttons for Searching Long Sorted Lists,” Ser. No. 09/780,229 filed Feb. 9, 2001, incorporated by reference in its entirety herein.

Within the context of the invention, a user selects an item from an ordered list, such as a file list from a computer, a name from a telephone directory, or a town name from a database. In an example application, the user is typically presented with a scrollable list on the display, with the ability to scroll the list and the ability to select an item on the list.

The ability to scroll through a large ordered list may be facilitated by the UI having a control that provides a tactile resistance to the user e.g., in proportion to the displacement applied. Such a control may comprise a spring-loaded jog/shuttle knob. The scrolling speed is determined by how many degrees the knob is rotated. The direction of the scrolling is determined by whether the knob is rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise. Other devices similar to the job-shuttle knob may include joysticks and scroll wheels. Additionally, pressure-sensitive devices such as touch pads on laptop PCs or drawing tablets may enable the user to scroll through a large list. The speed of the scrolling in proportional to the pressure applied.

When faced with a long list of items and a small display, it is often difficult to scroll through the list. If the screen is small, items do not stay on the screen for a very long time. Scrolling, therefore, needs to be done slowly, to allow the eye/brain to see the item for long enough to read it. On a large screen this is less of a problem, as the eye can track an item as it scrolls across the screen.

For a long list, it is desirable to scroll fast; otherwise the time taken to access the desired element in the list is annoyingly long. However, fast scrolling is in conflict with the previous point. The usability of a number of devices is constrained by the retrieval of data from a long list. For example, in a cellular phone (for the user's address book), these devices may have, or may have access to, address books hundreds of entries in length. Scrolling through the entries to select a number to dial is most desirable, as it can be done with just the thumb of one hand. In a PDA, databases such as the address book or other databases may be hundreds or thousands of entries in length. Also, portable audio jukeboxes—and MP3 players can now hold many tracks of music on an internal hard disk or solid state memory, but the unit itself is no larger than a traditional portable CD player. Typically as a cost and size saving the UI is via a display a few lines long and three or four buttons.

In a conventional UI, when the user starts to scroll through a long list, the scroll rate increases after a few seconds of holding down the scroll key. Entries in the list then scroll by at a rate that is almost impossible to read, particularly on a small screen

In a UI according to an embodiment of the present invention, the user experiences a particular sequence of events. The user begins at some point on a list. After the user rotates the jog/shuttle dial, the list rolls down at a low rate. As the user applies more force (i.e, rotates the jog/shuttle dial more) the scroll accelerates. After a predetermined time (e.g., about a second), a helper character is displayed. This character may represent a first letter of a name or a first digit of a telephone number. The character displayed is representative of a cluster of entries in the ordered list at the position currently being scrolled over. The UI displays the helper character to the user. The user continues to hold the scroll button until a help character, corresponding to his/her desired selection, appears. The user releases the scroll button and may slowly browse among a smaller group of data to locate the particular selection.

Refer to FIG. 1. The process, according to the present invention, is outlined. The procedure 100 begins at a list start point 110. The search is begun when the user rotates the knob 120 slightly The UI does a slow scroll 130. If the scroll 130 is too slow, the user may rotate the knob 120 further. A helper character is displayed 150. The helper character 150 represents the cluster of data currently being scrolled over. The user observes the display until the helper character displayed is in the vicinity 160 of the data he/she desires; that is, the helper character indicates the cluster sought. Having found the desired data, the user releases the knob 170. The knob springs back to its neutral position thus assisting the user in arresting the scrolling quickly. The list either scrolls forward or backward depending upon whether the knob 120 is rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise.

In another embodiment according to the present invention, such a scrolling procedure 100 may also be performed using a pressure-sensitive device such as a touch pad. The scroll moves in proportion to the force exerted by the user's finger or stylus. Forward or backward motion of the scroll may be defined by selected areas on the touch pad.

Refer to FIG. 2. In an example screen UI 200, the user starts at a point in an alphabetically ordered list 210 whose entries begin with the letter “B.” The user is interested in viewing an entry whose name begins with the letter “E.” The user rotates the knob; the list starts to step down at a low rate. Scrolling starts off slowly at the rate of about one line per second in step 220.

If desired, the knob is rotated further and the scrolling speeds up in step 230. After a predetermined time (T₁) or number of items, the screen area for the scrolling list is replaced by a single large character representing the first character of the cluster of items currently displayed in the window (or on the first line of the window for a window that has multiple lines). It is difficult to read the entries as they pass; a large “helper” letter (“B”) 240 supersedes above the list. In another embodiment, the “helper” letter may appear to the right or left (top or bottom) of the scrolled list and not cover the entire screen area.

After some time (T₂) or number of items, the character increments to the next possible value, as long as the user is holding down the scroll key. For example, in an alphabetically sorted list of names, the user might have started scrolling from “C”, after holding the key down for 3 seconds, stepping slowly through the entries starting with “C”, the list of discrete entries is replaced by a large “C” which overlaps the whole UI. As long as the user continues to maintain orientation of the knob, the letter will change, at about one second intervals to “D”, then “E”, etc

The list goes through the alphabet, as depicted by helper letters “C” 241, “D” 242, and “E” 243. The user releases the scroll button, having reached the vicinity of interest in step 244, upon viewing the helper letter “E” 243. When the user finally releases the knob, the entry in the list “closest” to the helper letter (or letters) is selected and displayed as the first item in the scroll list window in the UI screen 200.

In another example embodiment, the character displayed on the screen during the fast scroll does not necessarily need to be tied to the entries in the list being scrolled. For instance, the list may contain an alphabetically sorted list of names, with no entries for “L” and “M”, but that does not mean that the fast scroll mechanism needs to skip those letters during its operation. There are advantages in doing this. The list need not be traversed to retrieve entries for each increment, hence saving processing time. The user is not “caught-out” by the list suddenly jumping from “K” to “N”.

An example embodiment may also incorporate “decelerating” the scroll. If the user releases the knob momentarily during the “fast scroll”, but re-rotates the knob before a certain time elapses (T₃), the scroll continues. The spring-loaded knob also provides for a rapid stop of the scrolling data so that the user does not overshoot his desired selection. The neutral position is defined as “stop.” Rather than the single character being displayed incrementing on screen at the T₂ rate, a second letter appears alongside the first and that would increment instead. For example, the display would increment as “EA,” “EB,” “EC.” This of course can be extended to a third and four letters, as appropriate for a given application. Each subsequent short release of the scroll knob adds an additional letter to the display. The helper display encompasses a smaller subset of scrolling data. This short-release of the knob may be described as momentarily releasing the knob so that it springs back to the neutral position, then re-rotating it (at a predetermined angle) to continue the scrolling. Again, as mentioned earlier, the helper characters may be displayed along the side of the scrolled list.

As explained above with respect to some examples, aspects of the invention reside in providing an ergonomic user-interface for finding a specific information item in an ordered list or array. While scrolling through the list or array, the representations of the individual items get blurred and cannot be recognized anymore. An aspect of the invention addresses the issue of displaying a meta item that is representative of a group of items that is currently being scrolled.

The ergonomic user-interface may also include not only graphical, visually oriented user-feedback of the helper character but may include aurally oriented audio feedback or touch-oriented tactile feedback. For example, one who is blind may be able to use such an equipped device to listen to the helper character or feel a Braille representation thereof. Further information on an audio interface U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/464,855 filed on Dec. 16, 1999, titled, “Hand-Ear Interface for Handheld Device,” incorporated by reference herein its entirety.

The invention may be implemented on a handheld device in an example embodiment according to the present invention. Refer to FIG. 3. As depicted in a block diagram, a handheld device 300 comprises an actuator 310 and a display 340. The user interface may be a spring loaded jog/shuttle dial, joystick, or track pad. The user may actuate the actuator 310 to scroll either up or down. User interaction software 320 works in response to the selected key and the array of choices stored in memory 350. In the example handheld device, the memory 350 may have addresses and phone numbers. The user interaction software 320 provides output to software performing an action based on the user selection 360 and to user interface generation software 330. The UI generation software 330 generates information for the display 340 to depict the helper character or array entry along with presentation attributes such a font style, size, color, and object placement.

In an example embodiment according to the present invention, the jog/shuttle may be part of a handheld device that controls a set top box (STB). The STB, in turn, is connected to a network and it is enabled to receive program content from that network. The connection may be through a cable or via a satellite dish. The STB may store a super set of program information for the user. A subset of information may be transmitted to the handheld device and stored locally on it. This subset may be the user's favorite programs or URLs on the Internet. Information may be found that is directed toward the obtaining of content information as it relates to a method of selecting content through a network via a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), in a U.S. patent application titled, “One-Touch URL or Program Selection,” of Thomas Dubil et al, Ser. No. 09/872,715 filed Jun. 1, 2001 and is incorporated by reference, herein.

The user may scroll through the subset of data on the handheld, after having downloaded from the STB.

While the present invention has been described with reference to several particular example embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that many changes may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

Claims

1. A consumer electronics device comprising:

an information-rendering device;

a force-sensitive user interface, operative to enable a user to scroll through an ordered list of a data array that is rendered and to render the ordered list on the information rendering device; and

a helper character-generator being operative to replace only a portion of an item in the rendered ordered list being scrolled, as the rendered ordered list is scrolled with an enlarged rendered helper character that overlays a changing portion of the rendered ordered list as the rendered ordered list is scrolled, wherein the rendered ordered list is otherwise not replaced as the rendered ordered list is scrolled.

2. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the information-rendering device is selected from at least one of the following: includes a visual display, and at least one of an audio output, and a tactile feedback.

3. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the force-sensitive interface is coupled to a user interface assisting is configured to assist in searching for information from an ordered list in a data array, the user interface comprising,

an array scroller responsive to user actuation of the force-sensitive user interface, the user actuation being a magnitude of a force applied to the force-sensitive user interface, a scrolling speed of the array scroller being controlled by the magnitude of the force applied; and

the helper character-generator, actuated by continued user actuation of the array scroller, the helper character generator being operative to render an initial character of an item in the rendered ordered list being scrolled, in a an enlarged manner on a whole or a part of a screen of a visual display of the rendering device after being scrolled a predetermined time or a predetermined number of items.

4. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein, the helper character generator conditionally renders a record of additional helper characters in addition to the initial character.

5. In a data processing environment, a method for enabling a user to scroll through an ordered list in a data array accessible through a data processing device, the method comprising acts of:

rendering the list;

enabling the user to scroll through the list at a predetermined rate, in response to the user actuating the data processing device via a force-sensitive user interface, the predetermined rate being controlled by the magnitude of force the user exerts on the force sensitive interface; and

generating a portion of an item of the list being scrolled, in an enlarged manner replacing only a portion of the list being scrolled with the enlarged generated portion of the item overlaying a changing portion of the rendered ordered list as the rendered ordered list is scrolled, wherein the rendered ordered list is otherwise not replaced as the rendered ordered list is scrolled.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the data processing environment comprises a distributed environment.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the force-sensitive user interface comprises at least one of the following: jog/shuttle dial, touch pad, drawing tablet, mouse scroll wheel, joystick, a touch screen.

8. A consumer electronics device comprising:

a rendering device for rendering of an ordered list representing user-selectable items;

a force-sensitive user-interface for control of a speed of scrolling through the list rendered on the rendering device; and

a helper character-generator being operative to render a character in an enlarged manner replacing any prior such character that is representative of only a portion of an item in the list being scrolled with the enlarged generated portion of the item overlaying a changing portion of the rendered ordered list as the rendered ordered list is scrolled, wherein the rendered ordered list is otherwise not replaced as the rendered ordered list is scrolled.

9. Software, stored on A computer-readable non-transitory media, for medium having stored software for causing a data processing device to perform a method for enabling a user to scroll through an ordered list in a data array accessible through a the data processing device, the software method comprising acts of:

instructions for enabling the user to scroll through the list at a predetermined rate, in response to the user actuating the data processing device via a force-sensitive user interface, the predetermined rate being controlled by the magnitude of force the user exerts on the force sensitive interface; and

instructions for generating a helper character representative of a portion of the list being scrolled, wherein the helper character is generated, replacing only a portion of the list being scrolled, in an enlarged manner relative to other items of the ordered list with the enlarged generated helper character overlaying a changing portion of the ordered list as the ordered list is scrolled, wherein the ordered list is otherwise not replaced as the ordered list is scrolled.

10. The software medium of claim 9, wherein the computer-readable non-transitory media medium comprises at least one of the following: semiconductor memory, optical storage, magnetic storage, client/server data storage.

11. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the user interface is operable to receive a user's touch at a location of the information-rendering device and the enlarged rendered helper character corresponds to a portion of an image rendered on the information-rendering device underneath the touched location.

12. The consumer electronics device of claim 11, wherein the user interface is operable to transition to rendering the enlarged rendered helper character by rendering a series of intermediate images developing from the portion of the image rendered to the enlarged rendered helper character.

13. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the enlarged rendered helper character is representative of a cluster of entries in the ordered list at a position currently being scrolled through.

14. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the user interface is operable to render the ordered list with an entry in the list closest to the enlarged rendered helper character as a first item in the rendered ordered list.

15. The consumer electronics device of claim 14, wherein the user interface is operable to remove the enlarged rendered helper character from the rendered ordered list when scrolling ends.

16. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the enlarged rendered helper character is one of a plurality of enlarged rendered helper characters rendered during scrolling.

17. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the enlarged rendered helper character is a first enlarged rendered helper character and the user interface is operable to render a second enlarged rendered helper character together with the first enlarged rendered helper character when scrolling is stopped and thereafter restarted within a predetermined period of time.

18. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the ordered list is an alphabetical list of the data array and the enlarged rendered helper character is at least one letter of the alphabet.

19. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the consumer electronics device is a handheld device comprising a display and the helper character-generator is configured for rendering the enlarged rendered helper character on the display.

20. The consumer electronics device of claim 19, wherein the handheld device is a mobile phone.

21. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, comprising a wired or wireless connection coupled to the helper character-generator wherein the user interface is operative to enable scrolling of the ordered list accessed through the wired or wireless connection.

22. The consumer electronics device of claim 1, wherein the consumer electronics device is configured as an Internet-enabled wireless handheld device.

23. The consumer electronics device of claim 22, wherein the user interface is operative to enable scrolling of the ordered list accessed through the Internet.

24. The consumer electronics device of claim 22, wherein the ordered list is stored on an Internet server device.