Task-Based Application Grouping for Unified Bookmarking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional application managers fail to effectively organize and display related activities and tasks, leading to difficulty in task completion and reduced productivity due to the chronological nature of their lists, which can obscure or delete relevant information over time.
Innovation Solution
An application manager that sorts multiple applications and content related to tasks into discrete groups, recognizing relationships between activities and user actions to display task groups visually, allowing users to bookmark and pin items for easy access and sharing across applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If application manager uses chronological list to display recent activities, then it is simple to implement, but it becomes difficult to find relevant information and complete tasks efficiently
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the chronological list of applications into task-based groups. Instead of displaying all applications in a single flat list, the system organizes them into discrete task groups where each group represents a coherent task. This segmentation allows users to quickly identify and access relevant applications for specific tasks without scrolling through the entire chronological list, thereby improving ease of operation while maintaining manageable system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new organizational dimension beyond chronological ordering. By adding task-based grouping as an additional dimension for organizing applications, the system transforms the flat one-dimensional chronological list into a multi-dimensional structure. This allows applications to be accessed both chronologically and by task relevance, improving information retrieval efficiency without significantly increasing implementation complexity.
2Loss of information
If application manager displays all recent applications in chronological order, then it maintains complete history, but it obscures or deletes valuable information over time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments applications into task-based groups that preserve relevant information while improving task completion efficiency. By organizing applications into meaningful task groups rather than a single chronological list, the system retains important application history within each task context while making it easier to locate and access relevant information, thereby preventing information loss and improving productivity simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary organization of applications into task groups before users need to access them. By pre-organizing applications based on task relationships, the system ensures that relevant information is already grouped and ready for efficient access, eliminating the need for users to manually search through chronological lists and reducing the time required to complete tasks.
3Ease of operation
If application manager provides flat chronological list, then it is easy to implement, but users have to scroll through the list to see rest of applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the application list into task-based groups, allowing users to access applications more efficiently. Instead of scrolling through a single long chronological list, users can navigate to specific task groups and access relevant applications directly, significantly reducing the time required to locate applications while maintaining ease of operation through intuitive group-based navigation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds task-based grouping as an additional organizational dimension, transforming the flat chronological list into a structured multi-level hierarchy. This dimensional change allows users to access applications through task context rather than chronological order, reducing search time while preserving the chronological information within each task group for reference purposes.
Data Source
AI summary
This document describes techniques and devices for task-related sorting, application discovery, and unified bookmarking for application managers. Through use of an application manager, multiple applications (including standalone applications, instant applications, websites, and other content) that a person can use to accomplish a single task, or multiple related tasks, are sorted into discrete groups for display in the application manager. The application manager can automatically recognize relationships between activities performed with the applications and recognize user actions with the applications that are related to the activities. Based on the relationships and user actions, the application manager can automatically determine that the activities and actions represent a task and display a task group that includes the applications that represent the task. The task groups may be visually displayed as a stack, strip, or pile of windows or thumbnails representing each application or other content the person could use for the task.