PRESAGING AND SURFACING INTERACTIVITY WITHIN DATA VISUALIZATIONS

• US 20100325578A1
• Filed: 06/19/2009
• Published: 12/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rubin, Darryl E., Mital, Vijay, Payne, John A., Green, David G., Wolf, Jason A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,330,503 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/805
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts

Abstract

The use of visual cues associated with rendered visual items to cue a user on whether a rendered visual item has interactive capability and/or what type of interaction is possible with that visual item. The visual items may be rendered in a data driven way with each constructed using a corresponding parameterized view component. The parameter(s) are populated by data, perhaps by model variables obtained from an analytical model. The parameters then drive logic associated with the view component to thereby construct a visual item which may then be rendered. The rendering engine then renders the visual item with the visual cue. The user may then interact with the rendered visual item. Such interaction might cause some external action to occur, might change which visual items are displayed, and/or might change a value of the input parameters of one or more view components used to generate displayed visual items.

Claims

1. A method for interacting with a user interface that displays a plurality of visual items, the method comprising:

an act of a computing system rendering a plurality of data-driven visual items on a display, each of the plurality of data-driven visual items being formulated by providing data to an analytical model that uses data results from the analytical model to drive a corresponding parameterized view component, the view component containing logic that, when executed, uses the data received from the analytical model to construct the corresponding visual item;

an act of the computing system visually emphasizing at least one of the visual items on the display, wherein a type of visual emphasis correlates to a type of an interactivity enabled for the visual item;

an act of the computing system detecting a predetermined physical interaction between a user and the visual item has occurred;

in response to the act of detecting, an act of activating the interactivity enabled for the visual item.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the type of interactivity is an edit interactivity that changes data in a manner that one or more parameter values of one or more of the parameterized visual components changes.

3. The method in accordance with claim 2, wherein the one or more parameter values change by changing values of model parameters used to generate the one or more parameter values.

4. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the type of interactivity is a navigation interactivity that changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

5. The method in accordance with claim 4, wherein a type of navigation interactivity is a scoping interactivity that changes the subset of the plurality of view components such that at least some of the visual items that were displayed just prior to the navigation interactivity are also displayed just after the navigation interactivity.

6. The method in accordance with claim 5, wherein a type of scoping interactivity is a scrolling interactivity that changes a range of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

7. The method in accordance with claim 5, wherein a type of scoping interactivity is a detailing interactivity that changes a level of detail of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

8. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the type of interactivity is a linking interactivity that for at least one rendered frame changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering such that a different non-overlapping subset of visual items are rendered in the frame just after the linking interactivity as compared to just before the linking interactivity.

9. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the type of interactivity is a linking interactivity that changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering such that a different non-overlapping subset of visual items are rendered just after the linking interactivity as compared to just before the linking interactivity.

12. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more parameter values change by changing values of model parameters used to generate the one or more parameter values.

10. A physical computer program product comprising one or more physical computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, causes the computing system to instantiate in memory the following:

at least a portion of a view components repository that contains a plurality of view components, each corresponding to a visual item that may be displayed, and at least some of which being parameterized such that one or more parameters drives logic associated with the corresponding view component to thereby construct the corresponding visual item, wherein at least one of the plurality of view components is a visually cued interactive view component that comprises;

execution logic that, when executed, uses one or more parameters in order to construct a corresponding visual item;

at least one interactivity parameter that defines whether or not a user may interact with the rendering of the corresponding visual item and how, wherein the execution logic, when executed, uses the at least one interactivity parameter to construct the visual item such that when the visual item is rendered, the rendered visual item has the defined interactivity and includes a visual cue that shows the user that the rendered visual item is interactive and the type of interactivity; and

a view composition module configured to execute the execution logic of the visually cued interactive view component to thereby construct the visual item such that the visual item may be rendered by a rendering engine.

11. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the type of interactivity is an edit interactivity that changes data in a manner that one or more parameter values of one or more of the parameterized visual components changes.

13. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the type of interactivity is a navigation interactivity that changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

14. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 13, wherein a type of navigation interactivity is a scoping interactivity that changes the subset of the plurality of view components such that at least some of the visual items that were displayed just prior to the navigation interactivity are also displayed just after the navigation interactivity.

15. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 14, wherein a type of scoping interactivity is a scrolling interactivity that changes a range of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

16. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 14, wherein a type of scoping interactivity is a detailing interactivity that changes a level of detail of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering.

17. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the type of interactivity is a linking interactivity that for at least one rendered frame changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering such that a different non-overlapping subset of visual items are rendered in the frame just after the linking interactivity as compared to just before the linking interactivity.

18. The method in accordance with Claim TO, wherein the type of interactivity is a linking interactivity that changes a subset of the plurality of view components that are used to generate visual items for rendering such that a different non-overlapping subset of visual items are rendered just after the linking interactivity as compared to just before the linking interactivity.

19. A physical computer program product comprising one or more physical computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, causes the computing system to instantiate in memory the following:

at least a portion of a view components repository that contains a plurality of view components, each corresponding to a visual item that may be displayed, and at least some of which being parameterized such that one or more parameters drives logic associated with the corresponding view component to thereby construct the corresponding visual item,

wherein at least one of the plurality of view components is a visually cued interactive view component that comprises;

execution logic that, when executed, uses one or more parameters in order to construct a corresponding visual item; and

at least one interactivity parameter that defines whether or not a user may interact with the rendering of the corresponding visual item and how, wherein the execution logic, when executed, uses the at least one interactivity parameter to construct the visual item such that when the visual item is rendered, the rendered visual item has the defined interactivity and includes a visual cue that shows the user that the rendered visual item is interactive and the type of interactivity;

a view composition module configured to execute the execution logic of the visually cued interactive view component to thereby construct the visual item such that the visual item may be rendered

a rendering engine for rendering the visual item by executing the execution logic of the visually cued interactive view component such that the visual item has defined interactivity and includes the visual cue, wherein the defined interactivity is structured to operate the defined interactivity in response to detecting a predetermined physical interaction between a user and the visual item.

20. The physical computer program product in accordance with claim 19, wherein the one or more physical computer-readable media is computer storage media.