Context-Aware Teaching Animation for Touchscreen Gesture Learning
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Users face difficulty in discovering and accessing learning tools for gestures on computing devices, leading to rejection of gestures as a primary input method due to lack of intuitive guidance on available gestures and proper techniques.
Innovation Solution
A system that monitors the computing environment and launches teaching animations on a UI display when a user interacts with a writing-pad tool, providing visual instructions on manual gestures and their corresponding actions, allowing users to learn and perform gestures effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If learning tools are provided through traditional help menus, then users can access gesture information, but the access path becomes complicated and the tools become difficult to discover
Solution Approach 1:
The system proactively displays teaching animations before users attempt gestures, showing available gestures and their meanings in advance. This preliminary action eliminates the need for users to navigate complex help menus later, as information is provided upfront in context.
Solution Approach 2:
Teaching animations serve as an intermediary between the writing-pad tool and users, visually demonstrating gestures and their meanings. This intermediary makes gesture information accessible and intuitive without requiring users to navigate traditional help menu paths.
2Area of stationary object
If teaching animations are displayed in a separate display area, then the content-entry area remains unobscured, but the animation may not be sufficiently prominent to attract user attention
Solution Approach 1:
The teaching animation display area is positioned in a specific location (separate display area) with distinct visual characteristics. This local quality allows the animation to be prominent and attention-grabbing while simultaneously preserving the content-entry area for writing activities without obstruction.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Computer-readable media, computerized methods, and computer systems for intuitively surfacing a teaching animation that demonstrates a manual gesture recognized by a writing-pad tool are provided. Initially, the writing-pad tool is interrogated to determine a context of a computing environment associated with a touchscreen interface. Generally, determining includes recognizing a current condition of the writing-pad tool based on whether text is provided within a content-entry area generated thereby, ascertaining whether a focus of a cursor tool resides within the content-entry area based on whether a portion of the text is selected, and ascertaining which actions are available for invocation at the writing-pad tool based on the current condition and the focus of the cursor. The context of the computing environment is utilized to identify which teaching animations to promote to an active state. Typically the promoted teaching animations are associated with the actions ascertained as available for invocation.