Engineering Commons^™

An Introduction To Computer Viruses, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The computer virus is a problem to computer users at all levels including students, home users, corporate users, system administrators, corporate managers and even the anti-virus manufacturers. The viruses are written by people with malefic intentions to trouble the innocent users.

There are many types of viruses are boot sector viruses, file viruses, worms, Trojan horses, macro viruses etc. Each of these has many different variants. The older viruses were transmitting through floppies. Some older viruses like boot sector viruses are very rare nowadays as nobody boots from floppies. The modern day viruses transmit more through networks and emails. Macro …

Demonstrating Contradictions In A Graphical User Interface, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Designing a GUI is not so easy as it may appear to outside. The developer has to face many difficulties while improving the features of a GUI. In many cases improving one feature of a GUI results in worsening another feature of it, thus leading to a situation known as contradiction in TRIZ. Many such contradictions have been solved by different inventors in the past. We will demonstrate some important contradictions in this article and discuss alternative solutions for each contradiction.

Using Triz For Maximizing Information Presentation In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The modern software tools provide numerous graphic elements in their GUI, which demand more and more screen space. As the size of a display screen cannot be extended beyond a limit, it is typically seen as a constraint in a graphical user interface.

Looking from a TRIZ perspective, the computer screen should display all the information that the user needs (Ideal Final Result). There are various methods of addressing the problem of screen space, some of which are, ”using icons for windows”, “the desktop metaphor”, “the large virtual workspace metaphor”, “multiple virtual workspaces”, “overlapping windows” and “increasing dimensions” etc.

There …

Using Triz To Improve Navigation In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A typical user interface consists of several buttons, menus, windows, trees and other type of controls. The increased number of GUI elements and complexities of the GUI controls necessitate the user to acquire certain level of skill and efficiency in order to operate the GUI. There are many situations which further make the navigation difficult. Ideally the user should face no difficulties in navigating through the user interface. Any operation in the graphical user interface should require minimum pointer operations from the user (Ideal Final Result). This objective of a graphical user interface has led to several inventions trying to …

Using Triz For Minimizing Cursor Movements In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although a GUI is a revolutionary development over its predecessors, it suffers from a typical shortcoming that it requires a lot of pointer movements. As pointer movement is a slow process it affects the overall performance of a GUI operation. Besides too much pointer movement can frustrate a user. Hence, it is desirable to reduce the pointer movements while performing any action through a typical GUI. Ideally the user need not move the pointer to initiate a GUI based operation. In other words the pointer itself should automatically move onto the desired location on the graphical user interface (Ideal Final …

Inventions On Improving Visibility Of Gui Elements, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The evolution of computing technology has witnessed tremendous growth in the processing power of the computer. The memory and storage capabilities are also increasing year after year. In contrast to the above, the display area of a PC monitor remains the same. This inhibits the productivity of a computer, as the user does not just have enough view area to interact with the computer. Ideally the display screen should accommodate all required data, objects and GUI elements for user interaction. If some data or object is hidden behind or remaining beyond the display area, it should automatically come to the …

Inventions On User Friendliness Of A Gui- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although a GUI is considered to be convenient it still has certain shortcomings like ambiguity of pictorial symbols, difficulty of cursor movements, difficulty of interacting with smaller graphic elements, likeliness of making mistakes by slip of fingers, demand of more screen space, difficulty of searching in nested containers etc. Many users fail to operate a computer satisfactorily because of the special skill or training required to operate it. In order to avoid this problem, it is necessary to design the user interface in such a way that even an untrained user should also be able to operate the computer effectively …

Using Triz To Design Error-Free Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A graphical user interface has a lot of advantages over its predecessors. Its beauty, simplicity, adaptability, user-friendliness, visual clarity, speed and ease of operation have made it popular and suitable to a broad range of users. But a GUI also has certain limitations. Like any other type of user interface, a GUI can also be operated wrongly which may yield undesirable results. A good GUI should be intelligent to determine user’s intention and disallow him doing wrong operations. A less error-prone GUI is certainly more effective and efficient. Ideally the GUI should prevent users from doing any mistake while operating …

Arranging Display Of Gui Elements- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

One of the biggest drawbacks of the graphical user interface is that it consumes the active display area associated with the device. Whether the display screen is a part of a television, computer, or any other consumer device, the graphical user interface appears on the active area of the display screen. As a result the GUI masks a part of the display screen and the amount of information that can be viewed on the screen is reduced. Ideally the GUI should offer all its features without blocking any part of the display screen. The features should be readily available and …

Inventions On Three Dimensional Gui- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The graphical user interface has become popular because of its simplicity and user friendliness. The user can do very complex operations through GUI by simple pointer movements. One of its major drawbacks is that it consumes active display area. Every icon, every window and every other GUI element occupies some amount of screen space. It is desirable to display more GUI features within the limited amount of display screen. Adding another dimension to a graphical user interface can yield tremendous benefits such as improving aesthetics, data presentation, screen-space utilization and user friendliness. The user can easily locate the objects in …

Inventions On Auto-Configurable Gui-A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A GUI is intended for the end user but designed by the developer. Even the experienced developer cannot realistically anticipate what options will be required by the users at a future point of time. Besides, even a well-designed GUI may not be felt convenient to all categories of users as the skill, expertise and requirement of the users vary from each other.

Although the user can best describe his requirement and therefore can best configure the GUI, it is not advisable for the user to spend time and effort to configure the GUI. The user interface needs to be customized …

Inventions On User Configurable Gui- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The graphic user interface is a revolutionary development over the prior art technique of the command line interface. Using GUI the user can do even complex operations through simple means like clicking buttons or dragging various graphic elements.

Ideally the GUI should contain all those buttons (or menu items or other GUI elements) and only those buttons (or menu items or other GUI elements) that the user needs. Besides the GUI elements should not obscure the display of data, should take no time for searching and should create no confusion in any level of user. Generally the GUI elements are …

The Revised 40 Principles For Software Inventions, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Applying 40 Principles is one of the earliest and most popular techniques of TRIZ. There are no controversies on application of 40 principles by any of the TRIZ schools. Although they are fundamentally sound, there is some difficulty in applying those in software related problems. As they were originally developed for mechanical or technical problems, the meaning of many terms like 'thermal', 'aerodynamic', 'hydrodynamic', 'ultrasonic', 'infrared', 'temperature', 'liquid', 'gas' etc. are embarrassing in a software context.

This article reviews the 40 principles in the context of software industry and rephrases the principles and their applications to make them suitable for …

Evolution Of User Interfaces For The Visually Impaired- Part 2, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Physically or mentally challenged people cannot use a computer in the same way a normal people can. For example, a person with disability in hands cannot use a standard keyboard or mouse efficiently. People having hearing problem, visual challenge etc. cannot interact with a computer like a normal person. So it is necessary to specially design the computers, interfacing devices and software interfaces, which can be used by the physically challenged people.

This article analyses the types of visual disabilities, different assistive technologies for different visual disabilities, guidelines for developing user interfaces for the visually impaired, software products available for …

Patentability Of Software Inventions, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Software is very expensive to develop but very inexpensive to copy. Just by copying a software you create an exact duplicate of the original software and all with the same functionality. There is no difference between the original (which is bought) and the copy (pirated). The worse is when the source code is copied. The copier can even claim to have developed the software where the credit of the developer might go. The software developers use various methods to protect their source code such as copyright, trade secrets etc. but each having limitations. The developers are keen on finding legal …

Can A Triz Software Help You Inventing?, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A software on TRIZ and/or Innovation can certainly supplement human brain and memory in order to speed up an innovation job. There are various TRIZ and Innovation software available in market. Some are too complex to use, some deal with only limited number of TRIZ techniques and some are having good features of innovation without much emphasis on TRIZ. An obvious task remains to evaluate them and find which software can help you best in inventing.

This article does not recommend or reject any TRIZ software per se. It only describes the expected features of a good TRIZ software and …

Evolution Of User Interfaces For The Visually Impaired- Part- 1, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Physically or mentally challenged people cannot use a computer in the same way a normal people can. For example, a person with disability in hands cannot use a standard keyboard or mouse efficiently. People having hearing problem, visual challenge etc. cannot interact with a computer like a normal person. So it is necessary to specially design the computers, interfacing devices and software interfaces, which can be used by the physically challenged people.

There are many special devices like mouse, keyboard, pointers, and touch screens etc. to assist the visually challenged users. It is a challenge for the inventors and manufacturers …

Inventions On Menu Interfacing For Gui Applications, A Triz Based Analysis, Part-3, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

This article analyses 15 patents on Menu System from a TRIZ perspective to find out their IFRs and Contradictions. The previous two parts of this article analysed ten patents on the menu interfaces. This part analyses five more patents from TRIZ perspective and draws out the conclusion that the TRIZ process and methodology is perfectly applicable to software inventions.

Inventions On Menu Interfacing For Gui Applications, A Triz Based Analysis, Part-2, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The first part of the article analyzed five patents on menu interfaces. This part analyses five more patents from TRIZ perspective to find out their IFRs, Contradictions and which Inventive Principles have been applied to achieve those solutions.

Using Triz To Design The Future Keyboard, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A keyboard is the most common and widely used input device for a computer. Using the keyboard is often vital to interact with a computer. There are several aspects of a keyboard such as size, key layout, convenience and ergonomic features etc., which are continuously under improvement by keyboard designers and manufacturers. TRIZ is an efficient methodology in product designing. Using IFR and Trends we can well predict the directions of the future keyboards and using Contradictions and Principles we can overcome the current limitations. This article analyses the critical features of a keyboard, does a functional analysis, derives the …

An Ideal Computer Keyboard- A Case Study Of Applying Ideality On Keyboard Evolution, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Any product or system moves towards its ideality. If we know the Ideal Final Result (IFR) it becomes easy to predict the future generation of the product or system. The author made a study of over 100 patents on computer keyboards. Each of these inventions tries to achieve some new feature or functionality. But what is the ultimate keyboard? This article makes an attempt to find the features of an Ideal Keyboard.

Inventions On Menu Interfacing For Gui Applications, A Triz Based Analysis, Part-1, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

During last two decades, the computer menu system has been improved from a text based multiple choice to highly adaptive, self organized menu system. This has been possible by hundreds of inventions. This article analyses 15 patents on Menu System from a TRIZ perspective to find out their IFRs and Contradictions. Besides we will also see what Inventive Principles have been applied to achieve those solutions.

Inventions On Computer Keyboard- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Every stage of evolution takes a product towards its ideality. This also happens in case of the Computer Keyboard. Today’s keyboards are outcome of hundreds of inventions in past. This article analyzes some interesting inventions on computer keyboard from TRIZ perspective. The inventions improve various aspects of computer keyboards like increasing operating (typing) efficiency, reducing size, improving ergonomic features and so on. This article was first published in TRIZ Journal (http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2003/11/) in November 2003.

Inventions On Selecting Gui Elements, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Selecting an object or element is a fundamental operation in any graphic user interface. It is necessary to select an object before doing any operation (such as, dragging, copying, opening, deleting etc.) on that object. The GUI may provide features to select any single object or even multiple objects. The feature of selecting multiple objects can provides tremendous power to the GUI as the user can do complex operations on multiple objects in one go. However, the process of selection is not as simple as it appears to the user of a GUI. The internal logic of a selection mechanism …

Inventions On Displaying And Resizing Windows, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Windows are used quite frequently in a GUI environment. The greatest advantage of using windows is that each window creates a virtual screen space. Hence, although the physical screen space is limited to a few inches, use of windows can create unlimited screen space to display innumerable items. The use of windows facilitates the user to open and interact with multiple programs or documents simultaneously in different windows. Sometimes a single program may also open multiple windows to display various items. The user can resize the windows and move their location time to time as desired. However, there are several …

Inventions On Drag And Drop In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Drag and drop operation is one of the key capabilities of any Graphical User Interface. The user can do quite complex operations simply by visually dragging and dropping objects from one location to another. It saves user from remembering and typing a lot of commands. The result of a drag and drop operation may vary depending the type of source object and type of destination object. For example dragging a file and dropping on a folder may copy or move the file to the destination folder, dropping that file to a remote ftp location may upload that file using internet, …

Inventions On Color Selections In Graphical User Interfaces, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Color is an important aspect of any graphical user interface. Color is used to make a GUI attractive and meaningful. But, there are difficulties in using colors too. Improper use of color can give adverse effects. Wrong colors at wrong place make the GUI look clumsy and confusing. Besides the aesthetics issues there are many other issues involved with colors. One of the contradictions relating to usage of color is “The color of the GUI should be customizable to suit user preference. But at the same time it should not be customizable, as that will cause annoyance and confusion to …

Inventions On Gui Aesthetics, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Aesthetics or “look and feel” is one of the most important features of any graphical user interface. Better aesthetics makes the interface user-friendlier and more popular. Better aesthetics helps the user to understand the meaning of various components and memorize the navigation paths. A better look and feel ultimately makes a GUI more efficient and effective. Various methods are adopted to improve the aesthetics of a GUI, such as, by using colors, using 3D graphics, using pictorial icons, using sound etc.

It is important to provide links to all the features on the desktop or a quick access panel. But …

Inventions On Using Sound And Speech In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Voice recognition facilitates a human interaction with the machine. VR may be used to replace the manual task of pushing buttons on a wireless telephone keypad. This is particularly useful when the hands of the user are busy with other activities like driving a car.

However, the VRS system has several limitations. The VRS requires lot of training and customization in order to be effectively used by individual users as each individual falls into different voice patterns. Besides the voice interface is complex and is not as reliable as the keyboard or mouse. This article illustrates some interesting inventions on …

Inventions On Presenting Textual Items In Graphical User Interface, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although a GUI largely replaces textual descriptions by graphical icons, the textual items are not completely removed. The textual items are inevitably used in window titles, message boxes, help items, menu items and popup items. Textual items are necessary for communicating messages that are beyond the limitation of graphical messages. However, it is necessary to harness the textual items on the graphical interface in such a way that they complement each other to produce the best effect. One has to keep various considerations in mind while applying textual items in Graphical User Interface. This article illustrates a few inventions on …