Computer-implemented method for specifying a processing operation

• US 8,767,019 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2011
• Issued: 07/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sovanta AG
• Original Assignee: Sovanta AG
• Inventors: Heinrich, Claus, Kern, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Tung, Kee M
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHEN, FRANK S
• Application Number:
  US13/213,657
• Publication Number:
  US 20120162265A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,047 Days
• US Class Current: 345/661
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis

Abstract

The disclosed subject matter provides for specifying a processing operation by means of a gesture by way of a first and second database, tables, organizational graphs, organizational nodes, KPI-values (including aggregated KPI values, O-aggregated KPI-values), and an application where the application displays the O-aggregated KPI values retrieved from the first database or received from the second database in an organization view of the GUI, the organization view displaying the current organization node and its direct child organization nodes, the organization view enabling the user to navigate within the organization graph, whereby a selection of one of the displayed organization nodes triggers a re-execution wherein the selected organization node is used as the current organization node.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for specifying a processing operation by means of a multi-touch input device, the input device having an x-axis and y-axis orthogonal to said x-axis, the x-axis defining a device-centered horizontal line from the left to the right side of the input device, the y-axis defining a device-centered vertical line from the bottom of the input device to the top of the input device and the z axis defining a device-centered vertical line from the back side to the front side of the input device, the input device comprising:

a multi-touch screen,

the method comprising;

displaying a first view on the multi-touch screen, the first view comprising a plurality of first GUI elements;

receiving signal data being indicative of a gesture applied by a user on one of the first GUI elements via the multi-touch screen, the gesture being a one-finger or a two-finger gesture, wherein a two-finger gesture is a gesture wherein two fingers keep in contact with the multi-touch screen while the two-finger gesture is executed;

executing the processing operation in dependence on the signal data, wherein the processing operation is selected from the group consisting of;

sorting a plurality of date objects, each data object having assigned at least one KPI value;

rescaling a line-chart being indicative of a KPI-value time series;

aggregating a set of KPI values;

disaggregating an aggregated KPI value; and

determining one or more second views accessible by executing a further gesture on said on first GUI element;

updating the first view in dependence on a result of the processing operation;

wherein the one or more second views are accessible by executing the further gesture on said one first GUI element;

wherein each of the second views comprises one or more second GUI elements for processing one or more KPI values;

wherein the gesture consists of touching said one first GUI element by one finger for at least a first time period for selecting said first GUI element;

wherein the further gesture consists of dragging said one first GUI element to a target GUI elements, the target GUI element being one of the first GUI elements, by moving the finger along a path from said one first GUI element to the target GUI element, thereby keeping in touch with the surface of the screen, and removing the finger from the screen surface after having reached the target GUI element, thereby dropping said one first GUI element on the second GUI element;

wherein each of the target GUI elements represents one of the second views;

wherein upon executing said dropping action, the display of the second view represented by the target GUI element is triggered.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,

wherein the processing operation is the sorting of the data objects,

wherein each of the first GUI elements represents one of a plurality of different KPIs,

wherein the gesture is a two-finger gesture, the two-finger gesture being a gesture of two fingers placed on one of said first GUI elements, whereby the position of each of the fingers on said GUI element is not changed while applying the gesture;

the method comprising;

in case said two-finger gesture is applied for at least a first time period, selecting the KPI being represented by said one first GUI element;

sorting the data objects according to their respectively assigned value of the selected KPI;

displaying a list of second GUI elements, each second GUI element representing one of said data objects, whereby the list is sorted in accordance with the sorting of the data object.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein displaying the list of second GUI elements according to the sorting of the data objects is implemented such that the first GUI elements and the second GUI elements are simultaneously displayed in the view before the two-finger gesture is applied, whereby the second GUI elements are not sorted or sorted in accordance with another sorting order, and wherein as a consequence of the selection of the KPI, the second GUI elements are sorted and the first view is updated such that the list of second GUI elements is sorted in accordance with the value of the selected KPI.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,

wherein the processing operation is rescaling the line chart,

wherein the first GUI element the gesture is applied on is the line chart, the x-axis of the line chart representing a time axis, the y-axis representing a second scale for indicating the height of the KPI value of the line chart at any point along the time axis, the line chart comprising a plurality of vertical guide lines the guidelines being separated from each other by a first distance representing a first time period, the diagram comprising a curve being indicative of the development of the at least one KPI value over time;

wherein the gesture is a pinch gesture of two fingers placed on said line chart, whereby the distance of the two fingers along the x-axis increases or decreases during the execution of said pinch gesture;

wherein the signal data comprises a plurality of signal data packages received at a plurality of moments while executing the pinch gesture;

the method further comprising;

for each of the signal data packages, updating the displayed diagram, wherein the first distance increases proportionally to an increasing distance of the two fingers along the x-axis and wherein the first distance decreases proportionally to a decreasing distance of the two fingers along the x-axis.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the pinch gesture is recognized by means of a class library being operable to recognize and handle pinch-gesture.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the pinch gesture is a V-shaped motion gesture of two fingers moving in parallel along the two legs of said V, wherein the line-chart comprises further guidelines in parallel to the x-axis of the line chart, wherein the y-axis of the line chart and the distance between the respective further guidelines is rescaled proportionally to the distance of the two fingers along the y-axis, said distance changing dynamically in dependence on the V-shaped finger gesture.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,

wherein the processing operation is dis-aggregating the set of KPI values,

wherein the first GUI element the two-finger gesture is applied on is a geographic map, wherein a screen distance between any two objects displayed on the screen showing the geographic map is proportional to a physical distance of two corresponding physical objects, the proportionality being based on a geographic scale;

wherein the geographic map comprises, for each of one or more first geographic sub-regions, at least one first aggregated KPI value having been aggregated on a first plurality of data objects stored in association with said first geographic sub-regions;

wherein the gesture is a pinch gesture of two fingers placed on said one first GUI element, whereby the distance of the two fingers;

wherein the signal data comprises a plurality of signal data packages received at a plurality of moments while executing the two-finger gesture;

the method further comprising;

for each of the signal data packages, updating the geographic scale and the displayed geographic map;

wherein each update of the geographic map is executed in accordance with the updated geographic scale, wherein the geographic scale is modified proportionally to an increasing distance of the two fingers relative to each other such that the user zooms into the displayed geographic map, thereby displaying one or more second geographic sub-regions, each second sub-region being a sub-region of one of the first geographic sub-regions; and

for each of the second geographic sub-regions, calculating and displaying a second aggregated KPI value, each second aggregated KPI value being calculated by aggregating KPI values of a second plurality of data objects stored in association with said second sub-region.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein each of the first and second geographic sub-region is a geographic node of a hierarchical region graph, wherein the second geographic sub-region nodes are child-nodes of the first geographic sub-region nodes and wherein the region graph is used as a drill-down graph for executing a drill-down analysis, wherein zooming into the map by means of the two-finger gesture triggers the execution of a disaggregation of aggregated KPI-values in accordance with the topology of the region graph and in accordance with the updated geographic scale.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,

wherein the processing operation is aggregating the set of KPI values,

wherein the one of the first GUI element the two-finger gesture is applied on is a geographic map, wherein a screen distance between any two objects displayed on the screen showing the geographic map is proportional to a physical distance of two corresponding physical objects, the proportionality being based on a geographic scale;

wherein the geographic map comprises, for each of one or more first geographic sub-regions, at least one first aggregated KPI value having been aggregated on a first plurality of data objects stored in association with said first geographic sub-regions;

wherein the gesture is a pinch gesture of two fingers placed on said one first GUI element, whereby the distance of the two fingers decreases during the execution of said two-finger gesture;

wherein the signal data comprises a plurality of signal data packages received at a plurality of moments while executing the two-finger gesture;

the method further comprising;

for each of the signal data packages, updating the geographic scale and the displayed geographic map;

wherein each update of the geographic map is executed in accordance with the updated geographic scale, wherein the geographic scale is modified proportionally to a decreasing distance of the two fingers relative to each other such that the user zooms out of the displayed geographic map, thereby displaying one or more third geographic sub-regions, each third geographic sub-region being a super-region of one or more of the first geographic sub-regions; and

for each of the third geographic sub-regions, calculating and displaying a third aggregated KPI value, each third aggregated KPI value being calculated by aggregating KPI values of a third plurality of data objects stored in association with any of the first sub-region being a sub-region of said third sub-region.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein each of the first and third geographic sub-regions are geographic nodes of a hierarchical region graph, wherein the first geographic sub-region nodes are child-nodes of the third geographic sub-region nodes and wherein the region graph is used as a drill-down graph for executing a drill-down analysis, wherein zooming out of the map by means of the pinch gesture triggers the execution of an aggregation of KPI-values in accordance with the topology of the region graph and in accordance with the updated geographic scale.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting the one first GUI element on which the gesture was applied;

upon receiving the signal data, determining one or more target GUI elements to which the selected first GUI element can be dragged, said dragging to be executed by means of further gesture;

displaying, for each of the target GUI elements, a pointer GUI element being indicative of the path from the selected first GUI element to said target GUI element;

upon receiving further signal data indicating a dragging movement of the selected first GUI element to one of the target GUI elements, displaying parts of the second view represented by said one target GUI element.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the portion of the displayed parts of the second view correlates with the portion of the path already covered while executing the further gesture, and wherein the portion of the second view displayed is 0% at the moment when selecting the one first GUI element and is 100% at the moment when the selected first GUI element is dropped on the target GUI element.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the portion of the displayed parts of the second view and the portion of the first view together cover 100% of the screen and wherein the portion of the first view is 100% at the moment when selecting the one first GUI element and is 0% at the moment when the selected first GUI element is dropped onto the target GUI element.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the portion of the displayed parts of the second view increases as a result of executing a sliding movement on the second view along the selected path, the sliding movement of the second view being executed in the same speed and direction as the dragging movement of the finger, the second view thereby covering and hiding a growing portion of the first view.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the second view is transparent as long as the second view covers only parts of the first view, and wherein the second view turns opaque at the moment of dropping the selected first GUI element onto the target GUI element.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein in case the user removes his finger from the screen while executing the dragging movement and before the finger has reached the target GUI element, displaying the second view or a portion thereof is terminated and no data manipulation operation is executed on data of the selected first GUI element.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 11,

wherein the selected first GUI element represents a KPI and wherein the second view represented by the target GUI element comprises at least one GUI element for aggregating, disaggregating and/or displaying one or more values of said KPI, or

wherein the selected first GUI element represents an organization node of an organization graph having assigned a value of said KPI and wherein the second view represented by the target GUI element comprises at least one GUI element for displaying additional information stored in association with the organization node of represented by the selected GUI element.

18. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium being contained in a multi-touch input-device, the storage medium comprising computer-interpretable instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to execute a method for specifying a processing operation, the method comprising:

displaying a first view on a multi-touch screen of the input device, the first view comprising a plurality of first GUI elements;

receiving signal data being indicative of a gesture applied by a user v on one of the first GUI elements via the multi-touch screen, the gesture being a one-finger or a two-finger gesture, wherein a two-finger gesture is a gesture in which two fingers both keep in contact with the multi-touch screen while the two-finger gesture is executed;

executing the processing operation in dependence on the signal data, wherein the processing operation is selected from the group consisting of;

sorting a plurality of data objects, each data object having assigned at least one KPI value;

rescaling a line-chart being indicative of a KPI-value series;

aggregating a set of KPI values;

dis-aggregating an aggregated KPI value;

determining one or more second views accessible by executing a further gesture on said one first GUI element;

updating the first view in dependence on a result of the processing operation;

wherein the one or more second views are accessible by executing the further gesture on said one first GUI element,

wherein each of the second views comprises one or more second GUI elements for processing one or more KPI values;

wherein the gesture consists of touching said one first GUI element by one finger for at least a first time period for selecting said first GUI element;

wherein the further gesture consists of dragging said one first GUI element to a target GUI elements, the target GUI element being one of the first GUI elements, by moving the finger along a path from said one first GUI element to the target GUI element, thereby keeping in touch with the surface of the screen, and removing the finger from the screen surface after having reached the target GUI element, thereby dropping said one first GUI element on the second GUI element;

wherein each of the target GUI elements represents one of the second views;

wherein upon executing said dropping action, the display of the second view represented by the target GUI element is triggered.

19. A multi-touch input device, the input device having an x-axis and y-axis orthogonal to said x-axis, the x-axis defining a device-centred horizontal line from the left to the right side of the input device, the y axis defining a device-centred vertical line from the bottom of the input device to the top of the input device and the z axis defining a device-centred vertical line from the back side to the front side of the input device, the input device comprising:

a multi-touch screen,

a processor,

a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed by the processor cause the processor to execute a method for specifying a processing operation, the method comprising;

displaying a first view on the multi-touch screen, the first view comprising a plurality of first GUI elements;

receiving signal data being indicative of a gesture applied by a user on one of the first GUI elements via the multi-touch screen, the gesture being a one-finger or a two-finger gesture, wherein a two-finger gesture is a gesture in which two fingers both keep in contact with the multi-touch screen while the two-finger gesture is executed;

executing the processing operation in dependence on the signal data, wherein the processing operation is selected from the group consisting of;

sorting a plurality of data objects, each data object having assigned at least one KPI value;

rescaling a line-chart being indicative of a KPI-value time series;

aggregating a set of KPI values;

determining one or more second views accessible by executing a further gesture on said one first GUI element;

updating the first view in dependence on a result of the processing operation;

wherein the one or more second views are accessible by executing the further gesture on said one first GUI element,

wherein each of the second views comprises one or more second GUI elements for processing one or more KPI values;

wherein the gesture consists of touching said one first GUI element by one finger for at least a first time period for selecting said first GUI element;

wherein the further gesture consists of dragging said one first GUI element to a target GUI elements, the target GUI element being one of the first GUI elements, by moving the finger along a path from said one first GUI element to the target GUI element, thereby keeping in touch with the surface of the screen, and removing the finger from the screen surface after having reached the target GUI element, thereby dropping said one first GUI element on the second GUI element;

wherein each of the target GUI elements represents one of the second views;

wherein upon executing said dropping action, the display of the second view represented by the target GUI element is triggered.