Virtual Sphere Interface for Digital Content Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing user interfaces for navigating and manipulating digital content, such as e-books and social media posts, are cumbersome and inefficient, requiring numerous clicks or user actions to access desired content.
Innovation Solution
A virtual sphere user interface that represents digital content, allowing users to navigate and manipulate content units by rotating and activating actionable buttons on its surface, reducing the number of user inputs needed to access specific content units.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If traditional page-flipping or feed-scrolling interfaces are used, then content can be displayed in a familiar linear format, but navigation requires numerous clicks and takes a long time to access desired content
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms traditional linear navigation (1D scrolling/flipping) into spherical navigation (2D surface navigation). Content units are distributed across the surface of a virtual sphere, allowing users to navigate by rotating the sphere and selecting visible content, reducing navigation steps from multiple sequential clicks to direct selection of visible items.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual sphere is divided into multiple actionable buttons or segments on its surface, each representing a content unit. This segmentation allows simultaneous display and access to multiple content units across different regions of the sphere, enabling parallel navigation options rather than sequential scrolling.
2Productivity
If more actionable buttons are presented on the virtual sphere surface, then more content units can be accessed directly, but the interface complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual sphere serves multiple functions simultaneously: it is both the display medium and the navigation interface. The same spherical surface that presents content units also provides the rotational interaction mechanism for navigation, eliminating the need for separate navigation controls and reducing overall interface complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges the content display area with the navigation control area into a single unified virtual sphere interface. Users interact with the sphere itself to navigate, rather than using separate controls, combining information presentation and interaction functions in one element.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are methods and systems for displaying, navigating, and manipulating digital content (e.g., e-books). An example system comprises a content module for storing digital content, a user interface, and a content navigation module. The user interface enables a user to interact with the digital content, which includes a plurality of content units. The content navigation module is configured to display a virtual sphere through the user interface, present a plurality of actionable buttons on a surface of the virtual sphere, where each actionable button is associated with one of the plurality of content units; position the virtual sphere in response to a user input, activate one of the actionable buttons in response to another user input, and present one of the content units that corresponds to the activated actionable button.