USER INTERFACE CONTROLS FOR SPECIFYING DATA HIERARCHIES

• US 20110016432A1
• Filed: 07/15/2009
• Published: 01/20/2011
• 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
• Granted Patent: US 9,396,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/843
• 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:

receiving, at a computer system, a data set including values for a plurality of attributes; and

generating, by the computer system, a user interface including a first control component comprising an ordered group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being populated with a selectable list of attributes from the plurality of attributes and being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

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

updating, based 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.

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

determining, based 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 ordered group of drop-down menus is configured to display its current selection.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the user interface further includes a second control component operable to disable one or more drop-down menus in the ordered group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in the data hierarchy.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the second control component is operable to disable a first drop-down menu in the ordered group of drop-down menus only if all drop-down menus following the first drop-down menu in the ordered group have been disabled.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the ordered 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.

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

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the second control component is located adjacent to the first control component in the user interface.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the user interface further includes a visualization component comprising a visualization of the data set according to the data hierarchy.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the visualization of the data set is a treemap.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the visualization of the data set is a clustered bar graph.

13. A 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 receive a data set including values for a plurality of attributes; and

program code that causes the computer system to generate a user interface including a first control component comprising an ordered group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being populated with a selectable list of attributes from the plurality of attributes and being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy.

14. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 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 ordered group of drop-down menus; and

program code that causes the computer system to update, based 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.

15. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the user interface further includes a second control component operable to disable one or more drop-down menus in the ordered group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in the data hierarchy.

16. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the ordered 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.

17. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the user interface further includes a visualization component comprising a visualization of the data set according to the data hierarchy.

18. A system comprising:

a storage component configured to store a data set including values for a plurality of attributes; and

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

generate a user interface including a first control component comprising an ordered group of drop-down menus, each drop-down menu being populated with a selectable list of attributes from the plurality of attributes and being operable to select a particular attribute as a level in a data hierarchy.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the processing component is further configured to:

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

update, based 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.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the user interface further includes a second control component operable to disable one or more drop-down menus in the ordered group of drop-down menus, thereby disabling one or more levels in the data hierarchy.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the ordered 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.

22. The system of claim 18 wherein the user interface further includes a visualization component comprising a visualization of the data set according to the data hierarchy.