METHOD FOR ASSISTING USER INPUT TO A DEVICE

• US 20120032886A1
• Filed: 02/09/2011
• Published: 02/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tactus Technology Inc.
• Original Assignee: Tactus Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Ciesla, Craig Michael, Yairi, Micah B., Saal, Nathaniel Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,619,035 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0202 Constructional details or processes of manufacture of the input device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques

Abstract

A method for assisting user input to a device, comprising the steps of providing a user interface to retrieve a user input, providing a tactile interface layer that defines a surface and includes a volume of fluid and a displacement device that manipulates the volume of fluid to deform a plurality of particular regions of the surface into tactilely distinguishable formations that each represent a key of a key interface, allowing the user to provide input through the key interface, predicting a subsequent key input when a user provides an input through the key interface, and manipulating the volume of fluid to deform the plurality of particular regions into one of two types of tactilely distinguishable formations: a first type for tactilely distinguishable formations that represent a predicted key and a second type for tactilely distinguishable formations that represent an unpredicted key.

Claims

1. A method for assisting user input to a device, comprising the steps of:

providing a user interface to retrieve a user input;

providing a tactile interface layer that defines a surface and includes a volume of fluid and a displacement device that manipulates the volume of fluid to deform a plurality of particular regions of the surface into tactilely distinguishable formations that each represent a key of a key interface;

allowing the user to provide input through the key interface;

predicting a subsequent key input when a user provides an input through the key interface; and

manipulating the volume of fluid to deform the plurality of particular regions into one of at least two types of tactilely distinguishable formations;

a first type for tactilely distinguishable formations that correspond to a predicted key input and a second type for tactilely distinguishable formations that correspond to unpredicted key input.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of manipulating the volume of fluid to deform the plurality of particular regions into one of at least two types of tactilely distinguishable formations includes manipulating the volume of fluid to deform a tactilely distinguishable formation of the first type into a tactilely distinguishable formation of the second type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of manipulating the volume of fluid to deform the plurality of particular regions into one of at least two types of tactilely distinguishable formations includes manipulating the volume of fluid to deform a tactilely distinguishable formation of the second type into a tactilely distinguishable formation of the first type.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of manipulating the volume of fluid to deform the plurality of particular regions into one of at least two types of tactilely distinguishable formations includes manipulating the volume of fluid to deform an undeformed particular region of the surface into one of the two types of tactilely distinguishable formations.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first type of tactilely distinguishable formation is stiffer than the second type of tactilely distinguishable formation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first type of tactilely distinguishable formation is of a first shape and the second type of tactilely distinguishable formation is of a second shape.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first type of tactilely distinguishable formation is of a taller height than the second type of tactilely distinguishable formation.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second type of tactilely distinguishable formation is of a height that is substantially zero relative to the surface.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first type of tactilely distinguishable formation is substantially tactilely distinguishable from the surface and the second type of tactilely distinguishable formation is substantially tactilely indistinguishable from the surface.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising manipulating the device to provide a notification of a first type for a predicted key and a notification of a second type for an unpredicted key.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the device includes a display that displays images corresponding to each particular region to cooperate with the tactile interface layer to represent a key interface, and wherein the first type of notification is an image of a first type and the second type of notification is an image of a second type different from the first type.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the device includes a display that displays images corresponding to each particular region to cooperate with the tactile interface layer to represent a key interface, and wherein the first type of notification is an image of a first size and the second type of notification is an image of a second size that is smaller than the first size.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of manipulating the device to provide a notification of a first type and a second type includes manipulating the device to provide the notification of the first type when an input is detected at a tactilely distinguishable formation of the first type and manipulating the device to provide the notification of the second type when an input is detected at a tactilely distinguishable formation of the second type.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the device includes a speaker that produces sound wherein the first type of notification is a sound and the second type of notification is a sound of a magnitude less than the first type.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the device includes a vibration inducer and wherein the first type of notification is a vibration and the second type of notification is a vibration of a magnitude less than the first type.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of predicting includes storing historical inputs provided by the user and predicting a subsequent key input based on the historical inputs provided by the user.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the step of storing historical inputs includes applying a prediction rank based on the frequency of the historical inputs provided by the user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the step of applying a prediction rank to the inputs provided by the user includes applying a higher prediction rank to an input provided by the user at a higher frequency.