User Interface With Variable Sized Icons

• US 20080104544A1
• Filed: 01/04/2008
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: 3DLabs Incorporated Limited (Creative Technology Ltd.)
• Inventors: MURPHY, Nicholas, COLLINS, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,069,877 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/846
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A method of presenting content on the user interface display screen of a portable electronic device includes the presentation of a plurality of icons. The icons scale in size in accordance with a position of the respective icons along a curved path.

Claims

1. A user interface configured for selection of media content items, the user interface comprising:

a touch sensitive display screen having a plurality of icons representing items that may be selected by a user, wherein said icons are distributed along a curved path and the size of said icons is depends upon their position on the curved path;

a user input sensing mechanism configured to cause said icons to move along said curved path in at least one of a forward and reverse direction in response to a sensed user input direction.

2. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein the sensed user input direction is provided by a pointing device in contact with the display screen.

3. The user interface as recited in claim 2 wherein the pointing device is a finger.

4. The user interface as recited in claim 2 wherein the user interface is further configured to cause said icons to continue to move and gradually come to a halt after said pointing device has been removed from said screen.

5. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein the plurality of icons are selectable by touch.

6. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein subset of the plurality of icons are selectable by touch and a subset of the plurality are visible but not selectable by touch.

7. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein the plurality of icons are configured to change resolution to correspond to their changed size along the curved path.

8. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein the curved path is an ellipse.

9. The user interface as recited in claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured such that the icons have an area approaching zero as the respective icon position approaches an endpoint of the curved path on the display screen.

10. A computer readable medium containing programming instructions for the operation of a user interface that presents icons along a curved path on a display screen, the positions of said icons being variable as a function of their position along the curved path, the size of said icons varying with their position, any of said icons that are visible on said screen being selectable by touch.

11. A method of selecting content on a display screen of a portable media player, the method comprising:

representing a plurality of content items by a plurality of icons positioned along a curved path in the display screen; and

varying the respective sizes of the icons as a function of the location of the icons relative to a predetermined position;

wherein the display screen is configured to cause the icons to travel along the curved path in response to a user input.

12. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the display screen is a touch screen and the icons are selectable by touching the display screen.

13. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the predetermined position is a point located between the endpoints of the curved path but not at the endpoints and wherein the icon at the predetermined position is the largest icon of the plurality.

14. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the curved path simulates part of an ellipse.

15. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the plurality of icons are caused to move along a curved path that simulates one of a circular or elliptical path in a three dimensional view and wherein the predetermined position simulates the location of the nearest icon in the three dimensional view.

16. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the travel (movement) of the icons slows down gradually in response to removal of the user input.

17. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the travel of the plurality of icons exhibits a reversal of direction when the end of the list of content items is reached.