Fonts with feelings

• US 7,730,403 B2
• Filed: 03/27/2006
• Issued: 06/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Schuller, Heinz W., Johnson, Margaret K., Phillips, Howard W., Pahud, Michel
• Primary Examiner(s): Tung; Kee M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chu; David H
• Application Number:
  US11/390,017
• Publication Number:
  US 20070226615A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,527 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 715/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/109 Font handling; Temporal or kinetic typography
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that improve the instructional nature of fonts and/or the ability to create instructional fonts. Font characters are modified based on user interaction to enhance the user'"'"'s understanding and/or fluency of the word. The font characters can have sound, motion and altered appearance. When altering the appearance of the characters, the system operates on a set of control points associated with characters, changes the position of the characters, and changes the influence of the portion of characters on a set of respective spline curves. A designer or other user can customize the fonts and user experience by creating an episode package that specifies words to include in the user interface, and details about actions to take when certain events fire. The episode package can include media effects to play when a particular event associated with the media effect occurs.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

reading a file comprising text representing a sentence comprising a plurality of words, wherein one or more words in the sentence represented by the text are targeted in the file with a defined tag for applying a customizable instructional font included in the file to the text of the one or more words targeted with the defined tag, the file including a tag definition referenced by the defined tag associated with the instructional font and specifying at least one event and at least one action to promote word understanding performed in response to the at least one event;

displaying the sentence in a user interface of a program that aids a word understanding of a user and that allows the user to request multiple stages of informational output for interpreting meaning of a displayed word in the sentence that is targeted with the defined tag for the instructional font, wherein each stage of informational output communicates the meaning of the displayed word to the user using a different media effect to promote word understanding in multiple stages;

receiving input from the user to interact with at least a portion of the text of a displayed word in the sentence that is targeted with the defined tag, the input corresponding to an event specified by the tag definition;

determining whether the input comprises a request for informational output for interpreting the meaning of the displayed word;

determining a stage of informational output for the request based on whether the input comprises a subsequent request for informational output; and

performing at least one action specified by the tag definition in the file and corresponding to the stage of informational output to render a media effect for communicating the meaning of the displayed word to the user.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the file is a text file.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the file is a database.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the action is rendering a media effect that provides at least one of a phoneme of the displayed word, a grapheme of the displayed word, a pronunciation of the displayed word, and a pictogram of the displayed word.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the action is distorting the text of the displayed word based on the meaning of the displayed word.

6. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

reading text representing a sentence comprising a plurality of words, wherein one or more words in the sentence represented by the text are targeted with a defined tag for applying a customizable instructional font from a data store to the text of the one or more words targeted with the defined tag, the data store including a tag definition referenced by the defined tag associated with the instructional front and comprising one or more event tags specifying at least one event and at least one action to promote word understanding performed in response to the at least one event;

displaying the sentence in a user interface;

detecting an event being fired based upon an interaction by a user with at least a portion of the text of a displayed word in the sentence that is targeted with the defined tag for the instructional font;

determining whether the interaction indicates that the user does not understand the displayed word;

reading the data store to locate an event tag associated with the event, the event tag identifying a media effect to be played for the event to provide informational output for interpreting meaning of the displayed word when the user does not understand the displayed word; and

playing the media effect.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, further comprising the step of:

altering the portion of the displayed word while the media effect is played.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the altering step is performed in response to at least one of misspelling and mispronouncing a word.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the altering step includes distorting the portion of the text of the displayed word based on the meaning of the displayed word.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the event is a selection event that fires when the user selects the portion of the text of the displayed word.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the event is a hover event that fires when the user hovers an input device over the portion of the text of the displayed word.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the event is a spoken command event that fires when the user speaks a sound related to the portion of the text of the displayed word into a microphone.

13. A computer-implemented method for providing customizable fonts comprising:

reading at least one data store to determine words to display on a user interface of a computer;

displaying a sentence comprising a plurality of words represented by text, wherein one or more of the words in the sentence represented by the text are targeted with a defined tag for applying at least one customizable instructional font to the text of the one or more words targeted with the defined tag;

detecting a particular event as a user interacts with at least a portion of the text of a displayed word in the sentence that is targeted with the defined tag for the instructional font;

determining whether the particular event indicates that the user does not understand the displayed word;

performing an action to promote word understanding specified by a tag definition in the data store that is referenced by the defined tag associated with the instructional font and that specifies the action for the particular event when the particular event occurs;

wherein the data store includes at least one media effect for communicating meaning of the displayed word to the user;

wherein the action involves playing the media effect; and

wherein the media effect is designed to promote word understanding by providing informational output for interpreting the meaning of the displayed word when the user does not understand the displayed word.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the data store is a text file.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the data store is an episode package.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the episode package is supplied by at least one font designer.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the event is a stylus event.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the event is a speech event.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

altering an appearance of the portion of the text of the displayed word while the media effect is playing.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 13.