Author: Umakant Mishra
Abstract:
Although a GUI is considered to be convenient it still has
certain shortcomings like ambiguity of pictorial symbols, difficulty of cursor
movements, difficulty of interacting with smaller graphic elements, likeliness
of making mistakes by slip of fingers, demand of more screen space, difficulty
of searching in nested containers etc.
Many users fail to operate a computer satisfactorily because
of the special skill or training required to operate it. In order to avoid this
problem, it is necessary to design the user interface in such a way that even
an untrained user should also be able to operate the computer effectively and
efficiently.
Many inventions on assistive features like “screen zooming
features”, “improving navigation”, “tactile interfacing”, “speech and hearing”,
“features for visually impaired” are discussed in other articles. The six
patents analyzed in this article try to improve the user friendliness of the
GUI by using status indicators, relocating graphic elements in easily
accessible locations and displaying meaning and function of icons and other
graphical elements.
Keywords: TRIZ, Innovation, Invention, Inventive
Problem Solving, Software Patents, Software inventions, Graphical User
Interface, GUI design, User-friendliness, screen zooming, user configurable,
GUI elements, dynamic Interface, look and feel,
Umakant Mishra, Inventions on User Friendliness of a GUI- A
TRIZ Based Analysis (October 12, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1283123
or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1283123
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