Information Abstraction for Reducing Visual Complexity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Computer systems overwhelm users with excessive information items, leading to decreased productivity and efficiency as users spend valuable time searching through numerous options to find relevant information.
Innovation Solution
A decision-theoretic approach that automatically hides or reduces irrelevant information items from view, presenting a curated subset based on user preferences and navigation costs, using a cost-benefit analysis to optimize the display and accessibility of information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If more information items are provided to users, then the system offers more options and capabilities, but users experience increased processing time and decreased productivity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes irrelevant information items from the display, presenting only a curated subset of relevant items to users. This reduces the cognitive load and processing time required while maintaining access to the full set of system capabilities through selective presentation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different presentation qualities to different information items based on their relevance to the user's current context. Highly relevant items are prominently displayed, while less relevant items are hidden or deferred, creating a differentiated information hierarchy that optimizes user productivity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If more information items are displayed, then users have access to more options, but the visual complexity and search effort increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the most relevant information items from the complete set and presents them in a simplified view. This extraction process reduces visual complexity by removing extraneous elements while preserving access to the full capability set through selective display and deferred loading mechanisms.
3Loss of information
If users must navigate through multiple levels to find information, then comprehensive information is available, but the navigation time and effort increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-processing information items to determine their relevance to the user's current context before presentation. This preliminary relevance assessment allows the system to directly present the most relevant items without requiring users to navigate through multiple hierarchical levels, thereby reducing search time while maintaining information completeness.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to a system and methodology for controlling and presenting information to users in an automated manner. Sets of information items accessible by users from computer workspaces (e.g., from within and/or outside an application) are automatically hidden or reduced from view in order to facilitate user processing of a determined and/or reduced subset of information. The reduced subset is created from decision-theoretic considerations of the expected costs and benefits of hiding or mitigating information items from view or presentation while leaving more likely items or objects exposed for efficient access by users. The display of the ideal set of items takes into consideration controls that allow for the access of views that reveal sets of less likely items through one or more gestures. The control of the optimization may be facilitated by preference-assessment interfaces that allow a designer and/or a user to assess preferences about the costs of reviewing sets of items of different lengths and about the costs of gestures to reveal additional items.