Dynamic Control Elements for Wearable UI Clutter
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Solution Overview
Problem
Computerized watches with presence-sensitive displays often experience cluttered user interfaces and inaccuracies in interpreting touch targets due to their small size, requiring multiple user inputs to navigate between different UI parts and perform operations.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating dynamic control elements into the user interface that change over time to handle various application functions, reducing the need for user inputs by integrating controls directly into the UI, such as for music playback, and allowing users to control operations without navigating away from the main interface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the UI is spread across multiple different cards, windows, pages, or views to reduce clutter, then the interface becomes less cluttered, but the device requires multiple user inputs and more time-consuming user interactions to navigate between different parts of the UI
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges previously separate UI elements (controls for music playback, notifications, and other application functions) into a single unified control card. This consolidation allows users to access and control multiple application functions from one location, eliminating the need to navigate between multiple cards, windows, or pages, thereby reducing both the number of user inputs required and the time to perform operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The control card is designed as a universal interface that can display and control multiple different application functions simultaneously. By making the control card multi-functional, it consolidates various application controls (music playback, notifications, etc.) into a single location, improving ease of operation without requiring users to switch between specialized views for each function.
2Adaptability or versatility
If more control elements are added to the UI to handle different application functions, then the device can control more operations, but the interface becomes more cluttered
Solution Approach 1:
The control card employs dynamic elements that can change their appearance, content, and functionality based on the current application state and user context. This dynamic nature allows the card to adapt to different application functions without requiring separate static controls for each function, thereby increasing adaptability while maintaining a consistent and simple UI structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The control card utilizes parameter changes to transform its display and functionality based on the active application. By dynamically adjusting parameters such as displayed information, control options, and layout configuration, the card can handle diverse application functions without adding visual clutter, as the same structural element adapts its parameters to serve different purposes.
3Ease of operation
If multiple user inputs are required to navigate between UI parts, then the device can provide comprehensive control, but the power consumption increases due to processing more instructions
Solution Approach 1:
By merging multiple control functions into a single control card, the patent reduces the total number of navigation operations required to access different application functions. This consolidation decreases the number of instructions the device must process, thereby reducing power consumption while maintaining comprehensive control accessibility through the unified interface.
Data Source
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AI summary
A computerized watch is described that receives, from an application that is currently executing, information about a user controllable operation being performed by the application. The computerized watch automatically generates a dynamic control element associated with the user controllable operations being performed by the application. The dynamic control element includes: a first portion that presents at least a subset of the information about the user controllable operation being performed by the application, and a second portion that obtains user input that controls the user controllable operation. The computerized watch outputs, for display, a user interface that includes: the dynamic control element, and one or more static control elements that control other operations being performed by the computerized watch.