Touch Screen Gesture Recognition for Portable Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional user interfaces for portable devices are inflexible and require users to memorize complex key sequences and menu hierarchies, making it difficult to interact efficiently with multifunction devices, especially on smaller touch screen displays.
Innovation Solution
A portable multifunction device with a touch-sensitive display that detects finger-in-contact and finger-dragging events to move user interface objects across the screen, allowing for intuitive gestures like finger taps and swipes to perform operations, such as sliding icons, without the need for memorizing sequences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional user interfaces with physical pushbuttons are used, then device functionality can be accessed, but the interface becomes inflexible and requires memorization of complex key sequences and menu hierarchies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the static physical pushbutton interface into a dynamic touch-sensitive display interface where buttons and controls can move, change size, and reposition themselves based on user interaction. This allows the interface to adapt flexibly to different user needs while maintaining ease of operation through natural touch gestures rather than memorized sequences.
Solution Approach 2:
The touch-sensitive display automatically responds to user touches by highlighting, moving, or activating controls without requiring the user to navigate complex menus. The interface serves itself by providing visual feedback and automatic control activation, eliminating the need for users to memorize key sequences or menu hierarchies.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the number of functions in a portable device is increased, then device capability improves, but the user interface becomes more complex and harder to operate
Solution Approach 1:
The touch-sensitive display serves multiple functions simultaneously - it displays information, provides tactile feedback through visual highlighting, acts as a input device through touch gestures, and dynamically reconfigures its layout. This universal interface handles diverse device functions (communication, entertainment, information access) through a single unified interaction paradigm rather than separate controls for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds the dimension of touch interaction to the traditional two-dimensional display, creating a multi-dimensional interface where users can interact with controls in three dimensions (position, size, and touch pressure). This allows complex functions to be accessed through intuitive touch gestures rather than complex menu navigation, reducing perceived interface complexity while maintaining full functionality.
3Volume of moving object
If the screen size of portable devices is reduced, then device portability improves, but the user interface becomes harder to interact with
Solution Approach 1:
The interface dynamically adjusts control sizes and spacing based on the available screen real estate. Controls can expand or contract, and their positions can shift to optimize accessibility on smaller screens. This dynamic adaptation ensures that even on compact portable devices, touch targets remain sufficiently large and well-spaced for easy interaction.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes multiple interface parameters simultaneously - control size, inter-control spacing, font size, and layout configuration - to optimize the user interface for smaller screen dimensions. These parameter adjustments maintain touch interaction ease by ensuring that touch targets remain appropriately sized and positioned even when the overall device size is reduced for portability.
Data Source
AI summary
A portable device with a touch screen display detects a finger-in-contact event at a first position on the touch screen display and identifies a user interface object associated with the first position. The portable device determines whether the identified user interface object is moveable across the touch screen display. For an identified object that is determined to be moveable across the touch screen display, the portable device detects a sequence of one or more first finger-dragging, a first finger-out-of-contact, one or more second finger-dragging, and a first finger-out-of-range events and performs a first operation associated with the identified moveable user interface object at least in part in accordance with the first and second finger-dragging events. For an identified not moveable object, the portable device detects a second finger-out-of-contact event and performs a second operation, different from the first operation in response to a second finger-out-of-contact event.