3D Organizational Chart Visualization for Browser Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
As organizations grow, displaying the relationships between numerous employees in an organizational chart becomes cumbersome and time-consuming due to the need for extensive scrolling and navigation within a browser window, making it difficult to visualize hierarchical structures effectively.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that presents a filter menu within a graphical user interface, allowing users to select dimensions for grouping employees, dynamically altering the organizational chart layout to optimize the viewable area, using layouts such as vertical vectors or two-dimensional matrices based on the number of direct reports and available space, and enabling user input for resizing and zooming to improve visibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If all employees are displayed simultaneously in a traditional organizational chart within a browser window, then the complete organizational structure is visible, but extensive scrolling and navigation are required making it difficult to visualize relationships
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the traditional two-dimensional organizational chart into a three-dimensional spatial visualization where employees are represented as nodes in a virtual space. This allows the entire organization to be viewed simultaneously without scrolling by adding depth perception through perspective projection, making hierarchical relationships visually apparent through spatial positioning rather than vertical stacking.
Solution Approach 2:
The organizational chart becomes dynamically adjustable through zooming and panning operations. Users can focus on specific departments or individuals by zooming into relevant regions, or overview the entire organization by zooming out. The view adapts to user interaction, allowing efficient navigation without traditional scrolling by dynamically adjusting the visible portion of the organizational space.
2Quantity of substance
If the organizational chart is expanded to show more employees, then more information is visible, but the layout becomes confusing and difficult to navigate
Solution Approach 1:
By representing employees as three-dimensional nodes in a perspective projection, the system can display a large number of employees simultaneously without the layout becoming confusing. The depth dimension allows dense packing of nodes while maintaining visual distinction through size and position variations, making navigation intuitive through spatial relationships rather than hierarchical levels.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs color coding to differentiate departments, roles, or other organizational attributes. This visual encoding allows users to quickly identify and navigate to specific groups or individuals within the large organizational structure, improving ease of operation when displaying numerous employees.
3Stability of the object's composition
If a traditional organizational chart is used, then the hierarchical structure is represented, but it requires extensive scrolling to view different levels
Solution Approach 1:
The hierarchical structure is preserved by mapping organizational levels to different depths in the three-dimensional perspective projection. Upper management appears closer to the viewer while lower levels recede into the distance, maintaining the hierarchical relationship visually without requiring vertical scrolling. The stable composition of the hierarchy is achieved through consistent spatial positioning rules.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-calculates and positions all employee nodes in their appropriate spatial locations based on the organizational hierarchy before user interaction. This preliminary arrangement ensures that hierarchical relationships are immediately visible upon loading, eliminating the need for scrolling to different levels while maintaining structural integrity.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for generating and presenting alternative organizational views for an organizational chart being presented inside a browser window. These different organizational views can organize the contents of the organizational chart based on different dimensions, thus allowing the user to group employees within the organizational chart across different dimensions. Advantages of presenting these different groupings is to allow the managers to quickly check the status of their direct reports.