Patent Application
20100107066
1. Field
The present application relates to an improved scrollbar, and in particular to a user interface, a device and a method for improving scrolling on a touch based user interface.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
More and more electronic devices such as mobile phones, MP3 players, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are being configured with Graphical User interfaces (GUI) in the form of touch displays.
One problem with user interfaces with small displays arises when the content to be viewed is too large to fit on the display. Commonly only a portion of the content is then shown and a scrollbar is arranged on the display. The user can then pan the underlying content by moving the scrollbar. However, the use of scrollbars in touch based user interfaces can be problematic as sliding the elevator in the scrollbar down moves the image up, whereas moving the image by a dragging action on the touch UI moves the content in the dragging direction. This creates an inconsistency between the two command options that a user may find difficulties understanding. Reversing the direction of the scrollbar would solve this problem but make the scrollbars on touch UIs inconsistent with scrollbars on other devices such as personal computers.
Such inconsistencies will produce errors and discomfort when a user tries to use the system.
On this background, it would be advantageous to provide a user interface, a device, a computer-readable medium and a method that overcomes or at least reduces the drawbacks indicated above by providing a user interface, a device, a computer-readable medium and a method according to the claims.
In the following detailed portion of the present description, the teachings of the present application will be explained in more detail with reference to the example embodiments shown in the drawings, in which:
In the following detailed description, the device, the method and the software product according to the teachings for this application in the form of a cellular/mobile phone will be described by the embodiments. It should be noted that although only a mobile phone is described the teachings of this application can also be used in any electronic device such as in portable electronic devices such as laptops, PDAs, mobile communication terminals, electronic books and notepads and other electronic devices offering access to information.
The mobile terminals 100, 106 are connected to a mobile telecommunications network 110 through Radio Frequency, RF links 102, 108 via base stations 104, 109. The mobile telecommunications network 110 may be in compliance with any commercially available mobile telecommunications standard, such as Group Spéciale Mobile, GSM, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS, Digital Advanced Mobile Phone system, D-AMPS, The code division multiple access standards CDMA and CDMA2000, Freedom Of Mobile Access, FOMA, and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access, TD-SCDMA.
The mobile telecommunications network 110 is operatively connected to a wide area network 120, which may be Internet or a part thereof. An Internet server 122 has a data storage 124 and is connected to the wide area network 120, as is an Internet client computer 126. The server 122 may host a www/wap server capable of serving www/wap content to the mobile terminal 100.
A public switched telephone network (PSTN) 130 is connected to the mobile telecommunications network 110 in a familiar manner. Various telephone terminals, including the stationary telephone 132, are connected to the PSTN 130.
The mobile terminal 100 is also capable of communicating locally via a local link 101 to one or more local devices 103. The local link can be any type of link with a limited range, such as Bluetooth, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) link, a Wireless Universal Serial Bus (WUSB) link, an IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network link, a Radio Standard link for example an RS-232 serial link, etc. The local devices 103 can for example be various sensors that can communicate measurement values to the mobile terminal 100 over the local link 101.
An embodiment 200 of the mobile terminal 100 is illustrated in more detail in
The internal component, software and protocol structure of the mobile terminal 200 will now be described with reference to
The MMI 334 also includes one or more hardware controllers, which together with the MMI drivers cooperate with the touch display 336/203, and the keys 338/204, 205 as well as various other Input/Output devices such as microphone, speaker, vibrator, ringtone generator, LED indicator, etc. As is commonly known, the user may operate the mobile terminal through the man-machine interface thus formed.
The software also includes various modules, protocol stacks, drivers, etc., which are commonly designated as 330 and which provide communication services (such as transport, network and connectivity) for an RF interface 306, and optionally a Bluetooth interface 308 and/or an IrDA interface 310 for local connectivity. The RF interface 306 comprises an internal or external antenna as well as appropriate radio circuitry for establishing and maintaining a wireless link to a base station (e.g. the link 102 and base station 104 in
The mobile telephone 400 has a display 403 which shows an application area 409. The application area 409 is arranged with a scrollbar 410. As indicated by the portions 411 to 413 the scrollbar is divided in smaller portions. One portion 412 corresponds to what is currently being displayed in the application area 409 and the other portions 411 and 413 correspond to what is currently not able to fit in the application area 409.
It should be noted that these portions are not discrete portions, but the effect is continuous over the scrollbar. The divided portions are purely for illustrative purposes.
The scrollbar 410 is arranged to show a compressed image of the full content to be displayed. The compression is non-linear and often referred to as being of a Fisheye type. This means that the portion of the full content currently being displayed is given or is mapped to a larger portion of the scrollbar 410 than the portions that are currently not being displayed.
This makes it easy for a user to see what portion of the full content is being currently displayed and where it is located in the full content without having an elevator element in the scrollbar.
The full content is scrolled by the user touching the scrollbar in the area 412 corresponding to the currently displayed portion of the full content and sliding this portion along the scrollbar. The displayed content is moved in the same direction as the sliding motion. This provides a user with an intuitive coupling of the scrollbar and the displayed content. Scrolling by sliding the area 412 corresponding to the currently displayed content is linear in that the full content is panned in the same speed as the sliding. While the scrolling is in action the scrollbar 410 is updated continuously.
A touch or a tap outside the area corresponding to the currently displayed content, i.e. outside the first portion 412, will result in that the application area 409 displays a portion of the full content whose middle point corresponds to the position on the scrollbar. This has the effect that the further away from the area 412 corresponding to the currently displayed portion the user taps or touches the longer the scroll jump is.
In one embodiment the first portion 412 is fixed on the scrollbar. This has the advantage of further differentiating the improved scrollbar of the teachings herein with a traditional scrollbar thus instructing a user to operate the scrollbar differently in an intuitive and sublime manner.
In this embodiment the scrolling is achieved by a sliding gesture within the first portion 412. While the sliding gesture is maintained within the first portion 412 the speed of scrolling is constant. Should the sliding gesture leave the first portion 412 and continue in either of the other portions 411 or 413 the scrolling speed is increased. In one embodiment the speed is maintained even if the sliding gesture goes outside the first portion 412.
In one embodiment the scrolling is continued for as long as there is contact between the item (finger or stylus) that initiated the sliding gesture and the touch display even if the sliding movement has stopped.
In one embodiment the first portion 412 moves up and down the scrollbar 410 as the user scrolls the page.
In one embodiment the user interface of the device is arranged to scroll the content being displayed at a speed that corresponds to the non-linear distance from the first portion 412 corresponding to the portion currently being displayed in the application area 409. If a user thus makes a sliding motion in the scrollbar in either of the other portions 411 or 413 the scroll speed is determined according to the distance from the first portion 412. Thus to make a fast scroll a user can make a sliding gesture in the scrollbar close to one of the edges.
In one embodiment the scroll speed is determined corresponding to the starting position of the sliding action. In one embodiment the scrolling speed varies according to the distance from the edges.
As is also indicated by the arrows 530 and 540 a sliding gesture in the scrollbar 530 outside the first portion (412) results in a correspondingly larger portion of the full content 540 being scrolled.
By providing a compressed image of the full content a user is given an indication of what portion of the full content he is currently viewing and how much else there is to be viewed. In
In one embodiment the user interface is arranged to not move the page as the scrollbar is touched, only when a sliding gesture is detected.
In one embodiment only a portion of a traditional scrollbar is configured to act as a scrollbar according to the teachings herein. That is, only a portion of the scrollbar and the full content have a non-linear mapping.
The various aspects of what is described above can be used alone or in various combinations. The teaching of this application may be implemented by a combination of hardware and software, but can also be implemented in hardware or software. The teaching of this application can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable medium. It should be noted that the teaching of this application is not limited to the use in mobile communication terminals such as mobile phones, but can be equally well applied in personal digital assistants (PDA), laptops, media players, navigational devices, game consoles, personal organizers and digital cameras or any other device designed for a touch based user interface.
The teaching of the present application has numerous advantages. Different embodiments or implementations may yield one or more of the following advantages. It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list and there may be other advantages which are not described herein. For example, one advantage of the teaching of this application is that a user is provided with a scrollbar that provides a consistent association of input gesture direction and resulting movement while not being confusing with regards to traditional scrollbars.
Another exemplary advantage of the teaching of the present application is that the improved scrollbar solves the problem of inconsistent scrolling direction between page and scroll bar. This allows the scroll bar and the displayed image to remain close together, since targeting errors (dragging page instead of scroll bar) aren't so severe.
Another exemplary advantage of the teaching of the present application is that the improved scrollbar allows user to scroll the page even if the current view is an active element on the page which can't be touched without causing unintended action, e.g. a scrolling list.
Another exemplary advantage of the teaching of the present application is that the improved scrollbar hint at its function to users who know traditional scroll bars, while slightly different appearance (position and appearance of the scroll bar) helps users avoid confusion with traditional scrollbars.
Another exemplary advantage of the teaching of the present application is that the improved scrollbar's first portion gives an indication of the zoom level currently employed for displaying the content or how much of the full content is currently not displayed.
Although the teaching of the present application has been described in detail for purpose of illustration, it is understood that such detail is solely for that purpose, and variations can be made therein by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the teaching of this application.
For example, although the teaching of the present application has been described in terms of a mobile phone, it should be appreciated that the teachings of the present application may also be applied to other types of electronic devices, such as music players, palmtop computers and the like. It should also be noted that there are many alternative ways of implementing the methods and apparatuses of the teachings of the present application.
Features described in the preceding description may be used in combinations other than the combinations explicitly described.
Whilst endeavouring in the foregoing specification to draw attention to those features of the invention believed to be of particular importance it should be understood that the Applicant claims protection in respect of any patentable feature or combination of features hereinbefore referred to and/or shown in the drawings whether or not particular emphasis has been placed thereon.
The term “comprising” as used in the claims does not exclude other elements or steps. The term “a” or “an” as used in the claims does not exclude a plurality. A unit or other means may fulfill the functions of several units or means recited in the claims.
