Context-Sensitive Appliance Help for Cleaner GUI Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Household appliances, particularly cooking appliances, face challenges in providing user-friendly graphical user interfaces (GUIs) due to overwhelming information, especially during the initial learning phase or when displaying various operating states, which complicates user navigation and maintenance.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a man-machine interface with a visual display and touch-sensitive input means, allowing for an assistance mode that dynamically generates relevant assistance information based on the current menu page, hiding less frequently used information and enabling updates through an external communication interface for maintenance and improvements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If comprehensive assistance information is always displayed, then users have access to all needed help, but the interface becomes overwhelming and difficult to navigate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts assistance information from the main display and places it in a separate assistance mode that is only activated when users press a dedicated help button. This separation allows the main interface to remain clean and navigable while comprehensive assistance information remains available on demand.
Solution Approach 2:
The interface dynamically switches between normal operation mode and assistance mode based on user activation. The assistance information is not statically displayed but dynamically retrieved and shown only when needed, adapting the information presentation to the user's current needs.
2Ease of operation
If context-sensitive assistance is provided, then relevant information is highlighted, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback from the currently displayed menu page to dynamically determine which assistance information to show. The assistance mode retrieves information based on the context of the active menu, providing relevant help without requiring complex predictive algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds a temporal dimension to information organization by storing associations between menu pages and assistance items. This allows context-sensitive assistance to be provided through simple lookup based on the current display state, avoiding the need for complex real-time analysis.
3Reliability
If assistance information is updated frequently, then the system remains current and useful, but maintenance complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The assistance information is segmented into discrete items that can be independently updated. Each assistance item is associated with specific menu pages, allowing selective updates without requiring complete system maintenance. The external communication interface enables remote updates of individual information items.
Solution Approach 2:
The external communication interface serves multiple functions: it enables assistance information updates, provides system diagnostics, and allows remote configuration. This multi-functional approach consolidates maintenance operations through a single interface, reducing overall maintenance complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
On-screen help with contextual shortcut on an appliance The invention relates to an appliance (100) with a user interface (110) com- prising a display (111) for showing indications about conditions in the appliance, and first (112, 114) and second (113) touch-sensitive input means. The second input means causes the interface to enter an assistance mode displaying which assistance items, which a processing means (121) extracts from a collection (122) of assistance information based on the content of the display when the assistance mode is invoked. In one embodiment, a data record ensures that the user returns to the same page after consulting the assistance mode. In another embodiment, the appliance is adapted to update the collection of assistance information on the basis of data received at an external communication interface. In another embodiment, the display reacts differently to short and long activations of a given touch-sensitive input means. In another embodiment, the display includes parallax compensation.