The subject matter described herein relates to a graphical user interface for rendering and navigating a pie chart as well as for displaying complementary information pertaining to the pie chart.
Pie charts have long been shown to be an effective means of conveying data. Pie charts are increasingly being rendered on computer and mobile phone displays having touch screen interfaces. Many products on such devices allow a user to rotate the pie portion of the pie chart as a whole, like a roulette wheel. However, such an arrangement is disadvantageous in that there are often unpredictable stop positions of the rotating pie, it can be challenging to select thin pie slices easily, there can be an inability to select adjacent pie slices (because this can require minute rotation of the pie), and focus on the slice being viewed can be lost because of the displacement from the original slice.
Moreover, pie charts inherently pose a problem for users with impairments. For example, patterns are sometimes used instead of colors to assist visually challenged users better distinguish slices. However, such an arrangement is not always pleasing to the eye. In addition, selecting slices of pie charts on touch screen devices can be problematic for users having motor coordination difficulties.
In one aspect, a pie chart comprising a pie, at least two slices and a selector head is displayed in a graphical user interface. The selector head is rotatable around a circular selection assist track that has a center point corresponding to a center point of the pie. The selector head can point to a first slice and the graphical user interface can display information associated with the first slice. User-generated input is later received that changes (directly or indirectly) a position of the selector head from the first slice to a second slice. Thereafter, information is displayed in the graphical user interface that is associated with the second slice.
In some variations one or more of the following can optionally be included. For example, the graphical user interface in some implementations displays the selection assist track while in other variations the selection assist track is not displayed (i.e., it is not visible). The user-generated input can be obtained from a wide variety of input devices including touch screens (forming part of touch screen computing devices), mice, trackballs, joysticks, and the like.
The graphical user interface can display a highlight display unit that displays information characterizing the slice being pointed to by the selector head. The highlight display unit can include two graphical user interface elements. The first graphical user interface element of the highlight display unit, when activated, causes the selector head to rotate clockwise by one slice, while the second graphical user interface element of the highlight display unit, when activated, causes the selector head to rotate counterclockwise by one slice. In some cases, the highlight display unit can be selectively removed from the graphical user interface when another graphical user interface element is activated.
The graphical user interface can display a legend identifying each of the slices. The legend can comprise a plurality of legend graphical user interface elements each being associated with one of the slices and which, when activated, cause the selector head to change position to the corresponding slice.
A user-generated gesture can be received that is associated which results in a modified pie being displayed that excludes the slice associated with the gesture. The gesture can be user-generated input from any type of input device that is initiated on the associated slice and terminated external to such slice. Alternatively, the gesture removing the slice can comprise selection of a graphical user interface element associated with the slice for a period of time greater than or equal a pre-defined threshold (e.g., three seconds, etc.). This latter graphical user interface element can form part of the pie/slice or it can be external to the pie (e.g., the legend graphical user interface elements).
User-generated gestures activating graphical user interface elements can also be used to display additional information to one or more of the slices and/or to display different forms of charts such as bar charts.
Systems and methods consistent with this approach are described as well as articles that comprise a tangibly (e.g., non-transitorily, etc.) embodied machine-readable medium operable to cause one or more machines (e.g., computers, etc.) to result in operations described herein. Similarly, computer systems are also described that may include a touch screen computing device, a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory may include one or more programs that cause the processor to perform one or more of the operations described herein, some of which are responsive to user input via a touch screen of the touch screen computing device. In addition, operations defined by computer implemented methods can be executed by one or more data processors within a single computing system or distributed among two or more computing systems.
Implementations of the current subject matter can provide one or more advantages. For example, the current subject matter provides enhanced usability by allowing a user to select a particular slice of a pie chart regardless of size or location. In addition, the current subject matter allows a user to dynamically examine the effect of one slice or multiple slices over an entire pie chart. For users who are unable to distinguish colors, the location of the selector head and the corresponding values/information displayed in the highlight display unit allows such users to quickly identify the selected slice. Lastly, the current subject matter is advantageous because it allows a user to easily remove a pie slice from the pie chart to examine the resulting pie chart. This arrangement allows for a finer comparison of small values in a pie where one slice (or a few slices) consumer a large portion of the pie.
The details of one or more variations of the subject matter described herein are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the subject matter described herein will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, show certain aspects of the subject matter disclosed herein and, together with the description, help explain some of the principles associated with the disclosed implementations. In the drawings,
When practical, similar reference numbers denote similar structures, features, or elements.
It will be appreciated that the slices of a pie can be displayed in a variety of manners. For example, the diagram 900 of
One or more aspects or features of the subject matter described herein can be realized in digital electronic circuitry, integrated circuitry, specially designed application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) computer hardware, firmware, software, and/or combinations thereof These various aspects or features can include implementation in one or more computer programs that are executable and/or interpretable on a programmable system including at least one programmable processor, which can be special or general purpose, coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, a storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device.
These computer programs, which can also be referred to as programs, software, software applications, applications, components, or code, include machine instructions for a programmable processor, and can be implemented in a high-level procedural and/or object-oriented programming language, and/or in assembly/machine language. As used herein, the term “machine-readable medium” refers to any computer program product, apparatus and/or device, such as for example magnetic discs, optical disks, memory, and Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor, including a machine-readable medium that receives machine instructions as a machine-readable signal. The term “machine-readable signal” refers to any signal used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor. The machine-readable medium can store such machine instructions non-transitorily, such as for example as would a non-transient solid-state memory or a magnetic hard drive or any equivalent storage medium. The machine-readable medium can alternatively or additionally store such machine instructions in a transient manner, such as for example as would a processor cache or other random access memory associated with one or more physical processor cores.
To provide for interaction with a user, one or more aspects or features of the subject matter described herein can be implemented on a computer having a display device, such as for example a cathode ray tube (CRT) or a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a light emitting diode (LED) monitor for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device, such as for example a mouse or a trackball, by which the user may provide input to the computer. Other kinds of devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user as well. For example, feedback provided to the user can be any form of sensory feedback, such as for example visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactile feedback; and input from the user may be received in any form, including, but not limited to, acoustic, speech, or tactile input. Other possible input devices include, but are not limited to, touch screens (e.g., tablet computers such as IPAD tablets, XOOM tablets, PLAYBOOK tablets, etc.) or other touch-sensitive devices such as single or multi-point resistive or capacitive trackpads, voice recognition hardware and software, optical scanners, optical pointers, digital image capture devices and associated interpretation software, and the like.
Aspects of the subject matter described herein may be implemented in a computing system that includes a back-end component (e.g., as a data server), or that includes a middleware component (e.g., an application server), or that includes a front-end component (e.g., a client computer having a graphical user interface rendering the pie chart or a Web browser through which a user may interact with an implementation of the subject matter described herein), or any combination of such back-end, middleware, or front-end components. The components of the system may be interconnected by any form or medium of digital data communication (e.g., a communication network). Examples of communication networks include a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”), and the Internet.
The subject matter described herein can be embodied in systems, apparatus, methods, and/or articles depending on the desired configuration. The implementations set forth in the foregoing description do not represent all implementations consistent with the subject matter described herein. Instead, they are merely some examples consistent with aspects related to the described subject matter. For example, the various representations of the elements of the graphical user interface illustrated in the drawings, such as the selector head, can take a wide variety of forms.
Although a few variations have been described in detail above, other modifications or additions are possible. As stated above, the principles described herein are applicable to any type of chart or graph in which it might be useful to select a grouping of data in order to obtain further information. In particular, further features and/or variations can be provided in addition to those set forth herein. For example, the implementations described above can be directed to various combinations and subcombinations of the disclosed features and/or combinations and subcombinations of several further features disclosed above. In addition, it will be appreciated that references to direction, e.g., left, right, up, down, clockwise, counterclockwise, can be replaced with its opposite, e.g., left in place of right, or another direction, e.g., down in place of left. In addition, the logic flows depicted in the accompanying figures and/or described herein do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. Other implementations may be within the scope of the following claims.
This application claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 29/391,777 entitled “Graphical User Interface for an Electronic Display” filed on May 12, 2011, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.