Gestural Control for Social Network Interaction
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Solution Overview
Problem
User interaction with social network applications is time-consuming and data-intensive, requiring sequential browsing steps and significant network data transmission, especially on wireless devices with limited bandwidth.
Innovation Solution
A gestural control system that receives user gestures on a touch-sensitive display, identifies predefined social network functions, and communicates these functions directly to external social network applications, allowing for local identification and application of functions such as photo sharing or friend requests without the need for extensive internet browsing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If sequential browsing steps are used to locate contacts and apply functions, then users can access social network features, but data transmission volume increases and interaction time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads contact information, image data, and available social network functions into local memory before they are actually needed. When a user views an image with tagged contacts, the relevant data is already available locally, eliminating the need for sequential browsing and multiple network requests. This preliminary preparation of data resolves the contradiction by making interactions immediate while reducing subsequent data transmission needs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a local intermediary layer (the mobile device's processing unit and memory) that sits between the user and the remote social network server. This intermediary caches contact data, image metadata, and function definitions locally, allowing the user to interact with social network features without constantly communicating with the remote server. The intermediary resolves the contradiction by enabling fast local operations while minimizing network data transmission.
2Ease of operation
If sequential browsing steps are used to locate contacts and apply functions, then users can access social network features, but network data transmission increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads contact information, image data, and available social network functions into local memory before they are actually needed. When a user views an image with tagged contacts, the relevant data is already available locally, eliminating the need for sequential browsing and multiple network requests. This preliminary preparation of data resolves the contradiction by making interactions immediate while reducing subsequent data transmission needs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a local intermediary layer (the mobile device's processing unit and memory) that sits between the user and the remote social network server. This intermediary caches contact data, image metadata, and function definitions locally, allowing the user to interact with social network features without constantly communicating with the remote server. The intermediary resolves the contradiction by enabling fast local operations while minimizing network data transmission.
3Reliability
If multiple separate commands are transmitted to apply a social network function, then the function can be applied accurately, but the number of network transactions increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple separate commands into a single integrated gesture input. Instead of requiring separate actions to select a function, select contacts, and apply the function, the system merges these operations into one continuous gesture (such as a swipe or tap sequence) that simultaneously specifies the function and the target contacts. This merging resolves the contradiction by maintaining precise function application while dramatically reducing the number of network transactions required.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the traditional mechanical interaction model (multiple discrete button presses and menu selections) with a gesture-based control system. Gestures provide a more efficient interface that can convey multiple pieces of information (function type, target selection, social network platform) in a single continuous motion, thereby maintaining accuracy while improving interaction efficiency and reducing network overhead.
Data Source
AI summary
In a mobile communications terminal 100, there is provided a gestural control application for associated operation with an image viewing application. The gestural control application is configured to receive user gestures inputted through a touch-sensitive display of the apparatus when one or more images is displayed by the image viewing application. The gestural control application is configured to identify a correspondence between a received gesture and one of a plurality of locally-stored reference gestures and to identify selection by means of the inputted gesture of one or more entities in the or each image. By means of this identification and selection, said application is configured to communicate and apply a function associated with the identified reference gesture to an external web site through which is accessed a predetermined social network application, the function being applied in relation to the selected one or more entities.