Flexible Screen Layout for Enterprise Applications
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users of enterprise software applications face usability issues due to the need to navigate between multiple, often different, user interfaces and application instances, leading to confusion and loss of context, which hinders effective transactional tasks and provides a poor user experience.
Innovation Solution
A flexible screen layout system that dynamically adjusts the size of columns in a user interface to optimize the display area, allowing for multiple panels to be displayed on a single screen, enabling intuitive navigation and context retention through responsive design and layout adjustments based on available screen space.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users navigate between multiple user interfaces and application instances to carry out transactional tasks, then they can access data and information from different applications, but they become lost and confused, losing context of the current transactional task
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple application interfaces into a single unified user interface that displays content from multiple applications simultaneously. The system merges the first user interface and second user interface into one cohesive interface where both applications' data and functionality are accessible within the same contextual framework, eliminating the need for users to switch between separate application instances while maintaining context of the current transactional task.
2Area of stationary object
If a single column layout is used to present content, then the available screen area is fully utilized for one application, but users cannot view related content from multiple applications simultaneously
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the single column layout into multiple columns within the same user interface. The system divides the available screen area into a first column for presenting content from the first application and a second column for presenting content from the second application. This segmentation allows simultaneous display of related content from multiple applications while maintaining efficient use of the available screen space.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple columns are introduced to display content from multiple applications, then users can view related data simultaneously, but the screen area for each individual column is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic column layout where the size and configuration of columns can be adjusted based on user needs and available screen space. The system allows users to dynamically resize columns, collapse or expand them, and reconfigure the layout to optimize the display area for each application's content while maintaining the ability to view multiple applications simultaneously. This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by allowing flexible optimization of individual column areas while preserving multi-application visibility.
Data Source
AI summary
In one general aspect, a method can include generating a user interface for an enterprise application executing on a computing device using a flexible screen layout. The generating can include displaying, on a display device included in the computing device, a first user interface for the enterprise application including a first column that occupies an available screen area of the display device and that presents first content, receiving, in the first user interface, a selection for forward navigation, and displaying, on the display device, a second user interface for the enterprise application. The second user interface can include a second column presenting the first content and a third column presenting the second content that can occupy the available screen area of the display device. The flexible screen layout can adjust a size of the second column and the third column based on the available screen area of the display device.