A. Technical Field
The disclosure generally relates to the electronic display of documents. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a user interface for use with viewing electronically displayed documents.
B. Related Art
Many factors today drive the development of computers and computer software. One of these factors is the desire to provide accessibility to information virtually anytime and anywhere. The proliferation of notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other personal electronic devices reflect the fact that users want to be able to access information wherever they may be, whenever they want. In order to facilitate greater levels of information accessibility, the presentation of information must be made as familiar and comfortable as possible.
In this vein, one way to foster success of electronic presentations of information will be to allow users to handle information in a familiar manner. Stated another way, the use and manipulation of electronically-presented information may mimic those paradigms that users are most familiar with, e.g., printed documents, as an initial invitation to their use. As a result, greater familiarity between users and their “machines” will be engendered, thereby fostering greater accessibility, even if the machines have greater capabilities and provide more content to the user beyond the user's expectations. Once users feel comfortable with new electronic presentations, they will be more likely to take advantage of an entire spectrum of available functionality.
Paper books have a simple user interface. One opens a book and begins to read it. If a user wants to do something to the book (for example, add a textual annotation), he may use a pen or pencil to add a notation in the margin next to a relevant passage of the book. Here, the objects presented to the user include the paper page of the book with two regions (the margin and the text on the page itself) and the writing implement. Other types of actions are also available including bookmarking the page (for example, by folding over the top corner of the page), adding a drawing (using the same pen or pencil discussed above), and highlighting a passage (with a pen or pencil of different color). With these simple objects and tools, a user is able to interact quickly and easily with the pages of the book, creating an environment of active reading with a transparent user interface. Here, for example, a user concentrates on the text, not on the highlighter or pen in her hand when actively reading and annotating (adding a note or highlighting, for instance) the text.
The transition of active reading from the paper environment to the electronic book environment has not projected the same transparent user interface. Rather, electronic documents commonly provide a user interface where one selects an action from a tool bar located at the top of a display (for example, turns on a highlighting tool) then selects the object. This sequence of actions can become cumbersome when switching between actions. For instance, switching between adding a text annotation to adding a drawing requires moving a user's hand (or other cursor designating device) from the text area to the tool bar (step 1), selecting the drawing tool (step 2), moving the user's hand back to the text area (step 3), then selecting the object to be annotated (step 4). This number of steps can be compounded if a mistake is made. For example, the user intends to select the drawing tool, but instead selects the highlighting tool. The user then has to move back to the tool bar (step 5), select the correct tool (step 6), move back to the text area (step 7), then select the object to be annotated (step 8). For large displays, the distance one needs to control the cursor to travel is distracting. Importantly, for stylus-controlled input devices, this large distance translates into significant hand or arm movement that requires the user to change the focus of his attention from the text to be annotated to precise navigation over an extended distance. Performed many times, this change in attention may become a significant distraction and eventually force the user to refrain from actively reading a document or book.
While some electronic document editors include the option to display a list of menu items based on a right mouse click over selected text, this option is not readily apparent to all users. One needs to become familiar with a windowing, operating environment prior to learning about this feature. In short, because the right mouse button is a lesser know interface, any listing of options based on the operation of the right mouse button is not intuitive. To most users then, the use of this interface is not known and all advantages that may be potentially available for the users will remain a mystery. To this end, despite the programmers' efforts to the contrary, all benefits that remain shrouded behind the right mouse click are as if they never existed.
The present invention provides a technique for allowing a user to interact with the electronic display of documents with a simple user interface. Through use of the interface, a user experiences immediate gratification in response to selection of an object or objects. In a first embodiment, a selection of an object results in a display of a list of menu items relevant to the selected object. The user interface for the object is determined based on the type of object selected. Instead of displaying a general user interface for all potential selectable objects, the user interface is tightly associated with the selected object. Through being customized for the selected object (word, margin, page number, title, icon, equation, or the like), the user interface is quick, simple, and unobtrusive. In one embodiment, the goal associated with the user interface includes being functionally transparent to the user. The present application also relates to the mechanism underlying the functionality of the display and operation of the user interface.
In the context of the present invention, a “document” or “book” encompasses all forms of electronically displayable information including but not limited to books, manuals, reference materials, picture books, etc. Further, the documents or books may include catalogs, e-commerce publications, articles, web pages, and the like.
“Object” as used herein encompasses all displayed information. With reference to looking up information regarding the object, the object may be a word or a group of words, symbols, icons, reference point on a page, page number, equation, margin, title, title bar, corner of the screen, and the like.
For the purpose of this disclosure, annotations are generally related to textual annotations. However, other annotations that may be used include highlighting, drawings (as one would expect to do with a pencil or pen to a paper book), and bookmarks. While the annotations are to be displayed in conjunction with the document, the underlying document is not modified. Related annotations and techniques for creating them are described in the following disclosures:
U.S. Ser. No. 09/456,127, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Bookmarking and Placemarking a Displayed Document in a Computer System;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,754, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Installing and Using Reference Materials In Conjunction With Reading Electronic Content;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,805, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “System and Method for Annotating an Electronic Document Independently of Its Content;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,807, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Capturing and Rendering Text Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content;” and,
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,806, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus For Capturing and Rendering Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content” which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties for any enabling disclosure.
These and other novel advantages, details, embodiments, features and objects of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from following the detailed description of the invention, the attached claims and accompanying drawings, listed herein, which are useful in explaining the invention.
The present invention relates to an improved user interface for use with the electronic display and active reading of documents or books.
Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, scripts, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with any number of computer system configurations including, but not limited to, distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices. The present invention may also be practiced in personal computers (PCs), hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like.
A basic input/output system 260 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the personal computer 200, such as during start-up, is stored in ROM 240. The personal computer 200 further includes a hard disk drive 270 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, a magnetic disk drive 280 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 290, and an optical disk drive 291 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 292 such as a CD ROM or other optical media. The hard disk drive 270, magnetic disk drive 280, and optical disk drive 291 are connected to the system bus 230 by a hard disk drive interface 292, a magnetic disk drive interface 293, and an optical disk drive interface 294, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the personal computer 200.
Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk, a removable magnetic disk 290 and a removable optical disk 292, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operating environment.
A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk 290, optical disk 292, ROM 240 or RAM 250, including an operating system 295, one or more application programs 296, other program modules 297, and program data 298. A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 200 through input devices such as a keyboard 201 and pointing device 202. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 210 through a serial port interface 206 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 207 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 230 via an interface, such as a video adapter 208. In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.
The personal computer 200 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 209. The remote computer 209 may be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the personal computer 200, although only a memory storage device 211 has been illustrated in
When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer 200 is connected to the local network 212 through a network interface or adapter 214. When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer 200 typically includes a modem 215 or other means for establishing a communications over the wide area network 213, such as the Internet. The modem 215, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 230 via the serial port interface 206. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 200, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
In addition to the system described in relation to
In this example of
After an object has been selected, window 302 is displayed close to the physical location of object 301. Window 302 contains actions operable on the selected object. In one embodiment, as shown in
The location of window 302 as shown in
Here, the events as shown in
As represented in
These options as provided in window 302, in conjunction with object 301, present two types of feedback in response to a user selection. Here, both highlighting of the object 301 and presentation of the list of choices (the menu in window 302) occur based on the single user selection (tapping or clicking) of object 301. Various aspects of the actions associated with these menu options are treated in greater detail in the following disclosures,
U.S. Ser. No. 09/456,127, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Bookmarking and Placemarking a Displayed Document in a Computer System;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,754, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Installing and Using Reference Materials In Conjunction With Reading Electronic Content;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,805, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “System and Method for Annotating an Electronic Document Independently of Its Content;”
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,807, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Capturing and Rendering Text Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content;” and,
U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,806, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus For Capturing and Rendering Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content” which are incorporated herein by reference for any essential disclosure.
Alternatively, window 302 may also include options that may affect the display of the content as well. For example, window 302 may include menu options that allow for switching from one book to another. An advantage of displaying more information to the user may include a net reduction in the number of navigation steps required to perform a process. For example, by providing a menu option to allow one to change which book is currently being displayed, a user may switch between books with a few navigational commands. However, the total options available to a user at any given may be substantial. Due to the overcrowding of window 302, displaying all options decreases the intuitive nature of adding an annotation to a page.
As shown in
Further, as shown in
At least in one embodiment, the present invention improves the user interface presented to the user by minimizing the distance traversed to select a menu option as well as increases the size of the target area (for example, by increasing the font size) of the menu options.
The menu choices available to users include a number of annotation features. These annotation features can add value to the book. For example, while a textbook alone may not have much value, the textbook with annotations from Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking may be extremely valuable. However, if one were to purchase a book with annotations, one would not readily want to modify the purchased book (at least for copyright concerns) based on his own annotations or other active reading activities. At least one aspect of the present invention allows users the freedom to read actively a displayed text without the burden of contemplating how one is modifying the underlying document. Here, the user may be shielded from modifying the underlying document by having all annotations added to separate document or to a modifiable portion of the document apart from the displayed, non-modifiable portion.
In the foregoing specification, the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. Although the invention has been described in terms of various embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that various modifications, embodiments or variations of the invention can be practiced within the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. All are considered within the sphere, spirit, and scope of the invention. The specification and drawings are, therefore, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense. Accordingly, it is not intended that the invention be limited except as may be necessary in view of the appended claims.
This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/455,808 filed Dec. 7, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,214 which is hereby incorporated by reference. This application is related to the following applications: U.S. Ser. No. 09/456,127, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Bookmarking and Placemarking a Displayed Document in a Computer System;” U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,754, filed Dec. 7, 1999, “Method and Apparatus for Installing and Using Reference Materials In Conjunction With Reading Electronic Content;” U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,805, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “System and Method for Annotating an Electronic Document Independently of Its Content;” U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,806, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus For Capturing and Rendering Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content;” and, U.S. Ser. No. 09/455,807, filed Dec. 7, 1999, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Capturing and Rendering Text Annotations For Non-Modifiable Electronic Content.”
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 09455808 | Dec 1999 | US |
Child | 10460226 | US |