Hinged Device Navigation via Semantic Abstraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Hinged devices with multiple display surfaces connected by a physical hinge pose challenges in navigating user-generated content efficiently, as users often struggle to locate specific sections within large volumes of content, leading to frustration due to the complexity of conventional gesture input modalities.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of semantic abstraction techniques that utilize a hinged device to semantically abstract authored content, allowing users to navigate through abstracted pages rather than individual pages, with the hinge serving as an input mechanism to control scanning speed and granularity, providing navigational aids that facilitate quick location of specific sections.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If users navigate through individual pages in an electronic document, then they can view detailed content, but navigation time increases significantly when searching for specific sections
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the electronic document into multiple levels of abstraction: individual pages, sections, and the entire document. This hierarchical segmentation allows users to navigate at different granularities - viewing detailed page-by-page content when needed, or jumping directly to specific sections through higher-level abstracted representations, thereby reducing overall navigation time while preserving detailed viewing capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary navigation layer between individual pages and the complete document. This intermediary layer provides abstracted representations (such as thumbnails, previews, or structured outlines) that mediate between detailed content and overall document structure, enabling users to quickly locate sections without sequentially viewing every page.
2Device complexity
If conventional gesture input modalities are used for navigation, then the interface remains simple, but the complexity of hinged device operations increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the physical hinge serve multiple functions: it acts as both a structural connector between display surfaces and an input mechanism for navigation control. By detecting hinge angle and movement, the system enables various navigation operations (page turning, section jumping, search initiation) through a single versatile component, increasing navigation capability without adding separate controls that would increase operational complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The hinge automatically provides navigation functionality based on its natural physical state and movement. The system self-services by detecting hinge angle changes and autonomously executing appropriate navigation actions, eliminating the need for users to learn complex gesture sequences or operate additional controls, thus maintaining interface simplicity while enhancing adaptability.
3Productivity
If users manually organize large volumes of generated content, then content structure improves, but time and effort required for organization increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of content organization with an automated semantic analysis system. The system automatically analyzes content semantics, detects themes and structures, and organizes pages into sections without user intervention, substituting manual sorting effort with computational processing that occurs in the background, thereby improving content structure while eliminating organization time for users.
Solution Approach 2:
The content organization system operates autonomously by self-analyzing and self-organizing the electronic document content. It automatically identifies sections, applies appropriate structures, and updates the abstracted representation without requiring user input or manual arrangement, enabling the system to serve itself in the organization task and freeing users from this time-consuming activity.
Data Source
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AI summary
Techniques for navigational aid for a hinged device via semantic abstraction are described. Generally, the techniques described herein improve a user experience when the user is navigating through content, such as user-generated content in an electronic document. For example, the techniques described herein semantically abstract authored content in an electronic document to provide abstracted content. In implementations, abstracted content includes abstracted pages that each represent a different section of the authored content. When a user scans through an electronic document, rather than scanning page by page, techniques described herein instead navigate through displays of the abstracted pages. In addition, a hinge between different displays can be used as an input mechanism to control a speed of navigating through the abstracted pages to allow a user to more easily locate specific sections of the authored content.