Collaborative Widget State Synchronization via Server-Mediated Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing software design tools struggle to provide seamless collaboration and synchronization of interactive widgets across multiple user interfaces, leading to inconsistencies and suboptimal user experiences in collaborative environments.
Innovation Solution
An integrated application platform (ICAP) enables real-time collaboration by synchronizing widget states and visual feedback across multiple user computing devices, using a network computer system that tracks cursor movements and inputs, and propagates feedback responses programmatically to ensure consistent widget interactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If real-time synchronization of widget states across multiple devices is implemented, then collaborative user experience is improved, but system complexity and data transmission overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary component that mediates between multiple client devices. The server receives widget state changes from one device, processes them, and propagates them to other devices. This intermediary approach centralizes the synchronization logic, reducing the complexity burden on individual clients while ensuring consistent collaborative experience across all devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where widget state changes are detected on one device and immediately propagated back to other devices. This feedback loop ensures that all collaborators see consistent state changes in real-time, improving reliability of the collaborative experience. The feedback is triggered by specific events such as cursor movements, selections, and other user interactions with widgets.
2Ease of operation
If real-time propagation of cursor positions and inputs is implemented, then interactive feedback is improved, but network bandwidth consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential information needed for collaborative interaction - specifically cursor positions, selection states, and widget interaction events - and transmits only these extracted data points across the network. By filtering out unnecessary data and focusing on meaningful interactions, the system achieves responsive feedback while minimizing bandwidth consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system employs periodic status reporting where device states are synchronized at specific intervals triggered by user actions rather than continuous updates. This periodic action pattern reduces network traffic compared to continuous streaming while maintaining interactive feedback responsiveness. The system updates states in response to discrete events such as cursor movements, clicks, and selections.
Data Source
AI summary
A computing system receives position data from each of a plurality of user computing devices, the position data indicating a cursor position on a collaborative user interface for each collaborator during a collaborative session. The system determines, based on the position data, whether the cursor position of a respective collaborator is within a bounding area of a widget presented on the collaborative user interface. When the cursor position of the respective collaborator is within the bounding area of the widget, the system transmits feedback response data to each of the plurality of user computing devices to cause a corresponding feedback response for the widget to be presented on the collaborative user interface displayed on each of the plurality of user computing devices.