HVAC Touchscreen Schedule Layout Without Scrolling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Contemporary HVAC controllers with touch screen interfaces often require users to scroll through extensive schedules, making it cumbersome to set and modify time periods for programmable temperature settings, which can lead to increased user frustration and potential energy inefficiencies due to suboptimal programming.
Innovation Solution
A programmable HVAC controller with a touch screen interface that visually represents a day across multiple columns, allowing users to set start and end times by touching and dragging across the screen, eliminating the need for scrolling and simplifying the scheduling process, while enabling manual modification of schedule parameters.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If users scroll through extensive schedules on a traditional touch screen interface, then the interface can display detailed programmable temperature settings, but user interaction becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the traditional linear vertical scroll interface into a horizontal spread layout where schedule information is displayed across multiple columns representing different time periods. This dimensional change allows users to view and interact with extensive schedule information without vertical scrolling, as the content is reorganized horizontally across the screen width.
Solution Approach 2:
The schedule is divided into multiple columns, each representing a specific time period (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening). This segmentation allows the extensive schedule information to be broken into manageable visual segments that can be displayed simultaneously without requiring scrolling, improving both information visibility and interaction ease.
2Loss of information
If the touch screen display shows a full programmable schedule, then complete temperature control information is available, but the interface complexity increases making it harder to use
Solution Approach 1:
The patent reorganizes the complex temperature control information into a horizontal spread format where different time periods are arranged as columns across the screen. This dimensional reorganization presents comprehensive temperature control information in a visually structured layout that reduces perceived complexity compared to traditional vertical scrolling interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
Each column in the spread represents a specific time period with its own localized temperature control settings. This local quality approach allows complex temperature control information to be distributed across multiple focused segments rather than presented as a single complex block, making the interface easier to navigate and understand.
3Ease of operation
If users can easily set and modify time periods through touch interaction, then user satisfaction improves, but the interface design becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements direct touch interaction with the horizontal spread where users can tap, drag, and manipulate time period boundaries directly on the displayed columns. This self-service approach allows users to set and modify time periods through intuitive gestures on the visual layout itself, eliminating the need for separate configuration menus or complex interaction sequences.
Solution Approach 2:
The time periods are pre-divided into distinct columns in the horizontal spread, with each column representing a ready-to-edit time segment. This preliminary structuring of time periods into visual columns allows users to immediately interact with defined segments rather than creating time periods from scratch, simplifying the setting process while maintaining flexible modification capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A programmable HVAC controller that include a controller and a touch screen user interface is configured to control one or more pieces of HVAC equipment in accordance with a programmable schedule. In some instances, the controller of the programmable HVAC controller is programmed to define a number of columns on the touch screen display, such that a selected day of the programmable schedule may be visually represented across two or more adjacent columns of the touch screen display, with the selected day of the programmable schedule beginning in a first column and extending across and into a second adjacent column of the touch screen display. The controller may be programmed to monitor the touch screen display and allow a user to set a start time and/or an end time of a time period of the selected day of the programmable schedule by touching the first column and/or the second column of the touch screen display.