Dynamic Hierarchical Keyboard Interface for Touchscreen Input
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Solution Overview
Problem
Touch screen devices face limited screen space due to the large size of traditional keyboard interfaces, which degrades the user experience when trying to view content while providing input.
Innovation Solution
A dynamically generated and updated keyboard interface that reduces its size by evaluating character elements to determine the number of keys and assigned characters, allowing for efficient selection of data items without compromising input capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a traditional keyboard interface is displayed to enable user input, then input functionality is provided, but screen space for displaying content is significantly reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard interface is segmented into multiple hierarchical levels. Instead of displaying all possible keys simultaneously, the system divides the keyboard into primary keys (displayed initially) and secondary keys (accessible through primary keys). This segmentation allows the interface to provide complete input functionality while displaying only a subset of keys at any given time, thereby preserving screen space for content display.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a temporal dimension to keyboard navigation by implementing multi-level hierarchical access. Users navigate through levels (e.g., selecting a primary key to reveal secondary keys), transforming the traditional two-dimensional keyboard layout into a multi-layered structure. This dimensional transformation enables the system to provide access to all keyboard functions without requiring all keys to be visible simultaneously on the screen.
2Area of stationary object
If the keyboard interface is reduced in size to preserve screen space, then more content can be displayed, but input capability may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard interface is designed to be dynamic rather than static. The displayed keys change based on user interaction - initially showing primary keys, then revealing secondary keys when a primary key is selected, and continuing to expand to tertiary keys as needed. This dynamic adaptation ensures that the keyboard maintains full input capability while minimizing its visual footprint at any given moment, allowing maximum screen space for content display.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a nested hierarchical structure where secondary keys are nested within primary keys, and tertiary keys are nested within secondary keys. When a user selects a primary key, it 'expands' to reveal nested secondary keys; selecting a secondary key further expands to reveal nested tertiary keys. This nesting mechanism allows the complete keyboard functionality to be contained within a progressively expanding structure that starts small, preserving screen space while maintaining full input capability through iterative expansion.
Data Source
AI summary
A keyboard interface enables the efficient selection of one or more data items from a set of data items. The appearance of the keyboard interface can be dynamically generated and updated based on characteristics of the data items in the set. When a user selects a user interface element associated with a set of data items, the data items in the set can be evaluated to determine a number of keys to include in the keyboard interface as well as which characters are assigned to each included key. The number of keys and which characters are assigned to these keys can be determined by identifying a first character in each of the data items in the set. When the user selects a key, the keyboard interface can be updated in a similar manner but based on characters at a subsequent position in data items that matched the previously selected key.