JPH11110182A - Automatic customizing system for icon - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically arrange an icon to have an arrangement and a size so as to be used by an operator in the easiest way and to improve the icon operability. SOLUTION: An icon changing rule decision means 21 decides the rules to change the position and size of an icon, and these decided rules are stored in an icon changing rule storage part 31. A work situation grasping means 22 accumulates the icon operations of an operator and produces the icon operation accumulation information to store it in a work situation storage part 32. An icon position/size decision means 23 collates the icon changing rules stored in the part 31 with the icon operation accumulation information stored in the part 32 to decide the position and size of the icon.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for automatically customizing icons in an electronic computer, and more particularly, to a system for customizing icons.
The present invention relates to an automatic icon customizing system that improves operability.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this type of automatic icon customizing system has been used so that the operation is intuitive to humans. One example of a conventional icon automatic customizing system is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-219742. The "automatic icon customization system" described in this publication seeks a combination of an unsorted icon and an empty sort destination candidate that are closest to each other as viewed from both icons,
The system arranges icons by repeating a procedure of moving the icon of the determined combination to an empty sorting destination.

[0003]

A first problem is that in the above-mentioned conventional technique, icons are hardly visually recognized because human senses are not taken into consideration. The reason is that when displaying the icons, the size which has a great influence on human intuition and is not taken into consideration is taken into consideration.

A second problem is that the icons are not arranged in the order in which the operator feels easy to use. The reason is that the preference of the icon display is not inquired about the preference of the operator.

An object of the present invention is to automatically arrange icons in an arrangement and size that is most convenient for an operator to use, thereby improving operability.

[0006]

The first automatic icon customizing system of the present invention accumulates the operations of the operator on the icons, and determines the position and size of the icons based on the accumulated result.

The second automatic icon customizing system of the present invention comprises: (a) an icon change rule determining means for determining a rule for changing the position and size of an icon;
(B) an icon change rule storage unit that stores the rule determined by the icon change rule determination unit;
(C) an operation status grasping means for accumulating operations on the icons of the operator to create operation total information; (d) a work status storage unit for storing the total information; and (e) the operation status storage unit in the icon change rule storage unit. Icon position / size determining means for comparing a rule with the operation total information in the work status storage unit and determining the position and size of the icon.

[0008] A third automatic icon customizing system according to the present invention is the second automatic icon customizing system, wherein the total information on the operation is information on an average mouse movement time for the operation.

A fourth icon automatic customizing system according to the present invention is the third icon automatic customizing system, wherein the rule is such that the total number of operations and the average moving time of the mouse are inversely proportional to each other. Determine the position.

A fifth icon automatic customization system according to the present invention is the third icon automatic customization system, wherein the rule is such that the average movement time of the mouse and the number of operations are both axes, and the two axes are both axes. On the other hand, the position of the icon of the operation greatly deviating from the straight line obtained by the least square method is corrected.

[0011]

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, an embodiment of the present invention includes an input device 1 such as a keyboard and a mouse, a data processing device 2 operated by program control, a storage device 3 for storing information, and an output device 4 such as a display device. It is composed of

The data processing device 2 includes an icon change rule determining means 21, an operation status grasping means 22, and an icon position / size determining means 23. The storage device 3 stores an icon change rule storage unit 31 that stores a change determination rule.
And a work status storage unit 32 for storing the work status of the operator.

The icon change rule determining means 21 creates an icon arrangement / size change rule according to the frequency of each operation in response to a request concerning the operator's icon arrangement / size obtained from the input device 1. .

The work situation grasping means 22 grasps the work situation of the operator by accumulating the use situation of each command in the operation of the operator.

The icon position / size determining means 23 compares the change determination rule stored in the icon change rule storage 31 of the storage device 3 with the operator's work status stored in the work status storage 32. , Was in the work situation,
Change the layout and size of icons.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

The icon change rule determining unit 21 performs each operation based on information such as the arrangement of icons that are easy for the operator to use from the input device 1, the size of the icons, and which of the icon arrangement and size should be prioritized. An icon change rule, which is an icon change method according to the frequency of the icon change, is determined (step S1 in FIG. 2).

Based on the operation of the operator in step S2 of FIG. 2, the total number of operations of the operator is obtained by the work status grasping means 22, and the work status is grasped (step S3 of FIG. 2). Further, by the work status grasping means 22, FIG.
The icon change rule obtained in step S1 of FIG. 2 is compared with the operator's work status obtained in step S3 of FIG.

Next, the icon position / size determining means 23
Thus, the position and size of the icon are changed (step S4 in FIG. 2), and the output device 4 displays the change result on the screen (step S5 in FIG. 2).

When the work content is changed, the total of the operator's operations in step S3 in FIG. 2 is cleared by the icon position / size determining means 23, and the work is performed without resetting the priority of the icon. An environment suitable for the content is reconstructed (step S6 in FIG. 2).

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the arrangement of icons. Rules and restrictions on the arrangement and size of icons are determined according to the characteristics of each application. A certain amount of template may be determined. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the operator selects the most usable area from A, B, and C, and then determines how easy it is to arrange icons from the left or right. Contact. In addition, the operator is inquired of information as to whether or not to change the size of the icon and, if so, how much the command is used to increase the size of the icon. From these information, for example, the top 10 are iconized and arranged in order of frequency from top to bottom in A of FIG.
For operations exceeding the maximum size, rules such as maximizing the size of icons are defined.

The work status given by the work status grasping means 22 and the icon change rule determining means 21
The optimal icon display is derived. The optimum icon display and the current icon display state are collated by the icon position / size determining means 23, and a correction is made for any difference (step S4 in FIG. 2).

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

First, the operator performs a certain amount of operation to grasp the state of the work. Apply the preset icon setting rules that are most suitable for the task. Thereafter, steps S2 to S5 in FIG. 2 are repeated. If the user feels uncomfortable with the operation, step S1 is performed.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described.

The operation status grasping means 22 calculates the total number of operations, and averages the mouse movement time during execution of each operation (step S3 in FIG. 2). If the total number of operations and the average of the moving time of the mouse are not inversely proportional to the change in the arrangement / size of the icons by the work status grasping means 22, the step S1 is performed again. Also, when the least square method is used by the icon position / size determining means 23 and the line is markedly deviated from the straight line obtained by the least square method, the total of each operation and the time until the execution of the operation are inversely proportional. To arrange the icons as shown.

[0027]

The effect of the present invention is that the operator can more intuitively operate and the operability is improved.
The reason is that the arrangement order or size of the icons desired by the operator is interactively processed, and the icons are automatically customized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an area of an icon array.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Input device 2 Data processing device 3 Storage device 4 Output device 21 Icon change rule determination means 22 Work status grasping means 23 Icon position / size determination means 31 Icon change rule storage unit 32 Work status storage unit

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An automatic icon customizing system, wherein an operator's operation on an icon is accumulated, and the position and size of the icon are determined based on the accumulated result. (A) icon change rule determining means for determining a rule for changing the position and size of an icon;
(B) an icon change rule storage unit that stores the rule determined by the icon change rule determination unit;
(C) an operation status grasping means for accumulating operations on the icons of the operator to create operation total information; (d) a work status storage unit for storing the total information; and (e) the operation status storage unit in the icon change rule storage unit. An icon automatic customizing system, comprising: an icon position / size determining unit that determines a position and a size of an icon by comparing a rule with the operation total information in the work status storage unit. 3. The icon automatic customizing system according to claim 2, wherein the total information on the operation is information on an average moving time of a mouse for the operation. 4. The icon automatic customizing system according to claim 3, wherein the rule is a rule for determining a position of a mouse such that a total of the number of operations and an average moving time of the mouse are inversely proportional. 5. The rule according to claim 1, wherein the average movement time of the mouse and the number of operations are both axes, and the position of the icon of the operation largely deviated from a straight line obtained by the least square method with respect to both axes. 4. The automatic icon customizing system according to claim 3, wherein: