User interface controls for specifying data hierarchies

• US 10,684,748 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2019
• Issued: 06/16/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Helfman, Jonathan
• Primary Examiner(s): Barrett, Ryan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jiang, Haimei
• Application Number:
  US16/374,329
• Publication Number:
  US 20190227680A1
• Time in Patent Office: 440 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/24 involving graphical user interfaces [GUIs]

Abstract

User interface controls that facilitate the specification/modification of data hierarchies. In one set of embodiments, a first UI control component can be provided that comprises an ordered group of drop-down menus. Each drop-down menu in the ordered group can be populated with a selectable list of attributes from a data set and can be associated with a level in a data hierarchy. By selecting values using the various drop-down menus, a user can interactively specify a data hierarchy for the data set. The data set can then be visualized according to the specified hierarchy. In further embodiments, a second UI control component can be provided in addition to the first UI control component. The second UI control component can allow a user to interactively enable or disable certain drop-down menus in the ordered group, thereby acting as a “depth filter” for controlling the depth of the data hierarchy.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating a user interface comprising a slide bar control interface that spans a length of a row associated with a group of drop-down menus and is adjacent to the row of the group of drop-down menus, the slide bar control configured to control a depth of the group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy of the data set, and the depth indicating a number of drop-down menus to be enabled at a particular time;

disabling one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus to generate a subset of the group of drop-down menus;

receiving a selection of at least one menu of the subset of the group of drop-down menus; and

providing a visualization of a data set based at least in part on the received selection.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from a user, a selection change for a first drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus; and

updating, based at least in part on the selection change, a selectable list of attributes for a second drop-down menu following the first drop-down menu in the ordered group.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the updating comprising:

determining, based at least in part on the selection change, an attribute in the selectable list of attributes for the second drop-down menu that results in an invalid data hierarchy for the data set; and

deleting the attribute from the selectable list of attributes for the second drop-down menu.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus is configured to display a current selection of the drop-down menu.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the slide bar control interface is operable to disable the one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in a data hierarchy and affecting an amount of the data provided in the visualization.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the slide bar control interface is operable to disable a particular drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus only if all drop-down menus following the particular drop-down menu in the group have been disabled.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the group of drop-down menus are arranged in a row.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein disabling a drop-down menu comprises preventing a user from operating the drop-down menu to change a selection.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the visualization of the data set comprises at least one of a treemap or a clustered bar graph.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein each drop-down menu is further populated with a blank value.

11. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon program code executable by a computer system, the program code comprising:

program code that causes the computer system to generate a user interface comprising a slide bar control interface that is adjacent to a group of drop-down menus, the slide bar control configured to control a depth of the group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy of the data set, and the depth indicating a number of drop-down menus to be enabled at a particular time;

program code that causes the computer system to disable one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus to generate a subset of the group of drop-down menus;

program code that causes the computer system to receive a selection of at least one menu of the subset of the group of drop-down menus; and

program code that causes the computer system to provide a visualization of the data set based at least in part on the received selection.

12. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the program code further comprises:

program code that causes the computer system to receive, from a user, a selection change for a first drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus; and

program code that causes the computer system to update, based at least in part on the selection change, the selectable list of attributes for a second drop-down menu following the first drop-down menu in the ordered group.

13. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the slide bar control interface is operable to disable the one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in a data hierarchy.

14. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the group of drop-down menus are arranged in a row, and wherein the slide bar control interface spans the length of the row.

15. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the visualization comprises a hierarchical visualization of the data set according to a data hierarchy.

16. A system, comprising:

a non-transitory storage component configured to store a data set to be provided in a hierarchical visualization, the data set comprising values for a plurality of attributes of the data set; and

a processing component in communication with the storage component, the processing component being configured to;

generate a user interface comprising a slide bar control interface that is adjacent to a group of drop-down menus, the slide bar control configured to control a depth of the group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy of the data set, and the depth indicating a number of drop-down menus to be enabled at a particular time;

disable one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus to generate a subset of the group of drop-down menus;

receive a selection of at least one menu of the subset of the group of drop-down menus; and

provide a visualization of a data set based at least in part on the received selection.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the processing component is further configured to:

receive, from a user, a selection change for a first drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus; and

update, based at least in part on the selection change, a selectable list of attributes for a second drop-down menu following the first drop-down menu in the group of drop-down menus.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the slide bar control is operable to disable one or more drop-down menus in the group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in a data hierarchy.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the group of drop-down menus are arranged in a row, and wherein the second control component is a slider bar that spans the length of the row.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the visualization comprises a hierarchical visualization of the data set according to a data hierarchy.