System Level Search Interface for Cross-Application Data Discovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face difficulties in finding specific electronic data across multiple applications, requiring them to navigate and enter search terms individually in each application, leading to a cumbersome experience.
Innovation Solution
A system-level search user interface is introduced, allowing users to input a search term once and search across multiple scopes, including applications, files, and settings, with automatic execution of selected applications and display of search results, facilitated by keyboard shortcuts and scope identifiers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If users search for data in multiple applications individually, then they can find specific electronic data, but the operation complexity and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple application search functions into a single system-level search interface. Users can input a search term once and search across multiple applications simultaneously, eliminating the need to navigate to each application's search interface individually. This merging approach maintains comprehensive search capability while significantly reducing operational complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system-level search interface provides a universal search function that works across multiple applications and data types (files, settings, application data). This multi-functional approach allows a single search mechanism to handle diverse search needs, improving ease of operation without sacrificing search accuracy across different scopes.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users navigate to multiple application search interfaces, then they can access comprehensive data, but the time required for the search process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-establishing the system-level search interface that has access to multiple applications and data scopes ready before the user initiates a search. When a user enters a search term, the system can immediately begin searching across all configured scopes simultaneously, rather than requiring sequential navigation to each application. This preliminary setup significantly reduces search process time while maintaining comprehensive scope coverage.
3Productivity
If a system-level search interface is implemented, then search efficiency improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a system-level search interface as an intermediary layer between the user and multiple applications. This mediator handles the complexity of coordinating searches across different applications, managing search term distribution, and aggregating results. By concentrating the coordination logic in this single intermediary component, the system achieves high search efficiency while containing and managing complexity in a centralized, maintainable location rather than distributing it across multiple applications.
Data Source
AI summary
A system level search user interface that includes both a data entry portion and a search identification portion is displayed. Data input by a user as a search term is displayed in the data entry portion, and identifiers of each of one or more scopes on the computing device that can be searched using the search term are displayed in the search identification portion. Search results based on a selected scope are displayed in a search results portion of the system level search user interface. A set of keyboard shortcuts allow users to quickly search using any of the scopes, and see previews of a number of results that each of the scopes return. Additionally, the system level search user interface allow users to easily focus on different search result entries, and efficiently change scopes for searching.