Printer Driver Customization Tool Interface Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional printer driver customization systems fail to effectively differentiate between customized and non-customized drivers, leading to inconvenient user interfaces and operability issues when selecting drivers for installation.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus and method that includes a customize tool to manage and display printer drivers, allowing users to specify and customize settings, with features to identify and store customized drivers in a file (INF file) for easy identification during installation, ensuring only customized drivers are displayed and installed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If all family drivers are displayed independently regardless of customization status, then complete driver selection is available, but user interface operability deteriorates due to inability to distinguish customized drivers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies visual differentiation (analogous to color changes) by displaying customized drivers in a distinct manner from non-customized drivers in the driver selection interface. This allows users to immediately distinguish which drivers have been customized without losing the complete driver list, thereby improving ease of operation while preserving information about customization status.
2Ease of operation
If customized drivers are not identified on the screen, then all drivers appear uniformly, but operability worsens due to user confusion in selection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the driver list into customized and non-customized categories with visual indicators. This segmentation allows users to quickly identify customized drivers while maintaining the complete driver selection capability, thereby improving driver selection convenience without losing customization identification information.
3Reliability
If centralized management of printer drivers is implemented, then TCO is reduced through collective management, but user interface complexity increases due to customization management requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables the system to automatically track and identify customized drivers through backend processing, eliminating the need for complex manual tracking interfaces. The customization management system automatically maintains information about which drivers have been customized, reducing the perceived complexity for users while maintaining reliable centralized management.
Data Source
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AI summary
An information processing method, comprises the steps of acquiring information for identifying customized drivers; displaying the customized drivers in such a way as to be identifiable based on the information acquired in the acquisition step; selecting a driver to be installed from the customized drivers displayed in the display step; and installing the customized driver selected in the selection step.