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Evolution Of User Interfaces For The Visually Impaired, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

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

There are many input/output devices like mouse, keyboard, pointers, and touch screens …

50 Useful Software On Innovation, Concept Mapping And Idea Management, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Can any software help us innovating? Well a software may not help us directly in innovating but it can definitely help us in practicing any specific process of innovation, be it idea generation, idea management, concept mapping, problem analysis or idea presentation. There are many software which try to help us out while working through many such methods. The following is a list of 50 popular Innovation and Concept mapping software which are alive and usable.

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 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 …

Evaluating The Book “Triz: The Right Solutions At The Right Time”, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The book has 10 chapters, all on different approaches and methods of solving problems. Each chapter tries to solve problems using different techniques of TRIZ. The book not only describes all 40 Inventive Principles, 76 Inventive Standards, 39 Contradiction Parameters and other Techniques of TRIZ, but also illustrates a series of 114 practical problems and their solutions. The book has been translated into many languages including Japanese. This is undoubtedly one of the most impressive and essential textbooks on TRIZ.

The Ideal Ifr Is No Ifr: Criticism To The Triz Concept Of Ideality, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The limitations of TRIZ concept of Ideality hail from its root philosophy of Idealism. As the “ideas” are there in human minds/brains they are subjective in nature. The concept of “Ideal” and IFR may vary from person to person as they are biased by individual judgments. Similarly the IFR may vary from system to system and at different phases of the development of a system.

However, the same limitations may be considered as the strengths of Idealism. As the IFRs can be different for different people and groups, the solution developer should not always take his own IFR for granted. …

Introduction To The Concept Of Ideality In Triz, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Ideality is one of the most powerful concepts of TRIZ. According to ideality, the ideal state of the system is where all its functions are achieved without causing any problem. The system is better, faster, low cost, low error, low maintenance and so on. In other words, an ideal system consists of all positives and no negatives. An ideal product or system may not materially exist, or may not be possible to achieve, but the knowledge of the ideal system helps us to improve an existing system. Once we conceive the features of the ideal product (or system), we keep …

Application Of Triz Principles In Software Concepts, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The Inventive Principles of TRIZ are not only applicable to mechanical or technical field; they are also applicable to Software solutions. Most of the 40 principles are easy to learn, but the question arises where to apply and how to apply. This article shows some simple examples of applying TRIZ principles.

Some people may ask, the solutions in this article are all known, what is the use of trying out TRIZ Principles on them. My answer is the art of problem solving is like learning a bicycle. If you are capable of riding the cycle on a known road, there …

The Concept Of Resources In Triz, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

An ideal system should have all advantages and no harms. If the resources consumed are expensive than the output produced then the invented system becomes ridiculous. The objective should be to use least amount of resources, cheapest resources, easily available resources and resources available within the system.

Every system intends to achieve a main useful function. The use of resources should target to improve its main useful function. If certain parts of a system or certain resources lead to unwanted functions or harmful effects then that part of the system needs to be modified and those resources need to be …

An Introduction To Ariz, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

ARIZ- the Algorithm of Inventive Problem Solving, is a part of TRIZ. It is not as popularly used as other methods in TRIZ. The steps in ARIZ are difficult to follow and requires more intellectual effort. This method is used only to solve complex problem which are not solved by applying other methods of TRIZ. It is a tool for thinking in alternative directions to solve complex and non-standard problems.

From another point of view, ARIZ is a method of problem solving by redefining and restructuring the problem. Although problems can be solved by using other methods, it is better …

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 …

Three Tests Of Patentability, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

United States patent law prescribes three major criteria of patentability, viz, novelty, usefulness and non-obviousness. These "three tests of patentability" are fundamentals behind issue of any patent from USPTO. It is important to know these fundamentals for any person who intends to work on patents.