Intelligent Roadmap Navigation in Graphical User Interfaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
Complex business applications with graphical user interfaces often require users to navigate multiple screens to complete tasks, leading to inefficiency and disorientation due to the inability to display all necessary information on a single screen.
Innovation Solution
A system that generates a sequence of items and displays corresponding graphical elements in a GUI, allowing for smooth scrolling and automatic positioning of the currently active item at a focal point, enabling users to navigate and track tasks within a business process without excessive screen switching.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If all necessary information is displayed on a single screen, then user efficiency is improved, but the device complexity increases due to limited display space
Solution Approach 1:
The roadmap is segmented into multiple pages, each displaying a subset of tasks. The system divides the complete task sequence into manageable segments that can be displayed on a single screen, allowing users to view detailed information for specific task ranges without overwhelming the display.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces a temporal dimension to the display by organizing tasks chronologically across multiple pages. Instead of trying to display all tasks simultaneously in a single spatial arrangement, the system uses sequential pages representing different time periods, allowing comprehensive information display across multiple dimensional layers.
2Loss of information
If users navigate between multiple screens to review tasks, then complete task information can be displayed, but user performance decreases due to excessive screen switching
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-calculating and pre-displaying task information organized by time periods. Users can directly access specific task ranges without navigating through intermediate screens, as the system has already structured the information in a time-based sequence that allows direct jumping to desired locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary mechanism - a time period selector - that mediates between the user's need to access specific tasks and the constraint of limited display space. This intermediary allows users to quickly navigate to specific time periods without manually scrolling through every screen, reducing the navigation effort required.
3Ease of operation
If the roadmap displays all tasks in a single screen, then users can overview the complete process, but the interface complexity increases due to limited display real estate
Solution Approach 1:
The roadmap interface is segmented into multiple time period pages, each displaying a manageable subset of tasks. This segmentation allows the system to maintain a simple, clean interface on each individual page while still providing comprehensive process overview capability across the entire set of pages.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces dynamic navigation capabilities that allow users to flexibly move between different time period pages based on their needs. The interface adapts its content dynamically by loading different task sets corresponding to selected time periods, maintaining simplicity on each view while providing comprehensive functionality when needed.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for intelligent information navigation in a graphical user interface (GUI) where a sequence of items is generated and stored in a memory of a computer system. A number of graphical elements are displayed on a screen of a GUI, wherein each graphical element corresponds to an item of the sequence of items, and wherein the graphical elements are ordered according to the sequence. When requested, the graphical elements scroll in a chosen direction to gradually include a new graphical element into the screen at the direction of scrolling. Respectively, the scrolling could gradually exclude from the screen a graphical element at opposite direction. An item of the sequence of items could be selected as a currently active item. The displayed graphical elements are automatically scrolled to move the graphical element corresponding to the currently active item at a focal position within the screen.