Screen help with contextual shortcut on an appliance
Contents
1. 10 The appliance of claim 7 wherein the processing means is adapted to show pages selected from a collection of pages each carrying an identifier wherein the data record contains an identifier of a page shown at the moment of activation of the second touch sensitive input means 11 The appliance of claim 7 wherein the processing means is operable to associate a tactile activation of relatively shorter duration of the first touch sensitive input means with a primary control action and to associate a tactile activation of relatively longer duration of the first touch sensitive input means with entry into the assistance mode wherein the one or more assistance items to be shown are extracted on the basis of the primary control action currently associated with the first touch sensitive input means 12 The appliance of claim 11 wherein the processing means is configured to apply a guard mechanism to avoid Oct 23 2014 inadvertent tactile activation of the first touch sensitive input means said guard mechanism including that the processing means responds only to a release of an object from the first touch sensitive input means as an activation and the processing means responds to an application of an object to the first touch sensitive input means by dis playing a visual indication identifying the first touch sensitive input means 13 The appliance of claim 11 wherein the control actions include operational commands for c2. adapted to update the collection of assistance information on 51 Int Cl the basis of data received at an external communication inter GO6F 3 0484 2006 01 face In another embodiment the display reacts differently to GO6F 3 01 2006 01 short and long activations of a given touch sensitive input GO6F 3 0488 2006 01 means In another embodiment the display includes parallax GO6F 3 0482 2006 01 compensation 110 140 100 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2014 Sheet 1 of 4 US 2014 0317501 A1 110 1214 120 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2014 Sheet 2 of 4 US 2014 0317501 A1 300 s Ee Ax 321 320 fe 322 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2014 Sheet 3 of 4 US 2014 0317501 A1 599 510 100d Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2014 Sheet 4 of 4 US 2014 0317501 A1 sc13 Fig 7 US 2014 0317501 Al SCREEN HELP WITH CONTEXTUAL SHORTCUT ON AN APPLIANCE TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION 0001 The invention disclosed herein relates to graphic user interfaces for appliances preferably cooking appliances More precisely the invention relates to methods and devices for providing contextual shortcuts particularly shortcuts to assistance information BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 Household appliances are becoming more and more complex and the development of new functionalities is accompanied by parallel efforts to maintain the man machine
3. US 20140317501A1 as United States a2 Patent Application Publication 0 Pub No US 2014 0317501 Al Brasseur et al 43 Pub Date Oct 23 2014 54 SCREEN HELP WITH CONTEXTUAL 52 U S Cl SHORTCUT ON AN APPLIANCE CPCs siris GOGF 3 0484 2013 01 GO6F 3 0482 2013 01 GO6F 3 016 2013 01 GO6F 75 Inventors Jerome Brasseur Pordenone IT 3 0488 2013 01 Petter Karlsson Stockholm SE WS PCEren anna denies 715 702 715 708 Martin Knausenberger Rothenburg DE Arnd Hofmann Schallfeld DE 57 ABSTRACT 73 Assignee ELECTROLUX HOME PRODUCTS On screen help with contextual shortcut on an appliance The CORPORATION N V Brussels BE invention relates to an appliance 100 with a user interface 110 comprising a display 111 for showing indications 21 Appl No 14 347 326 about conditions in the appliance and first 112 114 and second 113 touch sensitive input means The second input 22 PCT Filed Oct 13 2011 means causes the interface to enter an assistance mode dis playing which assistance items which a processing means 86 PCT No PCT EP2011 067918 121 extracts from a collection 122 of assistance informa 371 c 1 tion based on the content of the display when the assistance 2 4 Date Jun 5 2014 mode is invoked In one embodiment a data record ensures that the user returns to the same page after consulting the Publication Classification assistance mode In another embodiment the appliance is
4. a data record relating to the semantic and or graphical content of the screen image as discussed above Hence if a control action is can celled for lack of the confirmatory action the user is brought back to the screen image This typically leads to more effi cient user interaction than if the user had been brought back to a root position in the menu system after the cancelling 0029 Itis noted that the features appearing in the above third group of embodiments can be practised alone and inde pendently of the other inventive features described herein 0030 The invention relates both to appliances with the features outlined above and to the methods which these per form during operation The invention further relates to the method of transmitting from a remote site update informa tion and executable update instructions to an appliance caus ing this to enter maintenance mode and update its collection of assistance information The method may comprise the final step of confirming that the requested update has been com pleted successfully 0031 It is noted that the invention relates to all combina tions of features even if they are recited in different claims BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0032 The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings on which 0033 FIGS 1 and 2 are generalized block diagrams of appliances with graphic user interfaces in accordance with embodiments
5. ance This separation is advantageous from a further point of view namely that it may reduce the vulnerability of the appli ance to inadvertent amendments that may be prejudicial to the functioning of the appliance Ifall or most data that are critical to the functioning are gathered in the static portion the risk of a standstill is reduced 0018 A further possibility falling within the scope of the invention would be to express the amendments to be made to the collection of assistance information in incremental form that is in terms of additions and deletions to be made within specific assistance items Items that are not affected by addi tions or deletions are left unamended in the maintenance mode Ifa non incremental representation of the amendments is used then for completeness also data underlying unamended assistance items are be transmitted to and received by the external communication interface Using an incremental representation may be a more economic option in that a relatively smaller transmitted data volume is sufficient to enable the maintenance operation and in that the mainte nance operation is in most cases concerned with only a subset of the collection of assistance information 0019 Preferably the appliance is adapted to enter the maintenance mode in response to a remote control command For instance the external communication interface may be adapted to receive and recognize a particular message format that tr
6. assistance items It is noted that the features characterizing this second group of embodiments may be practised independently of the other inventive features 0016 The maintenance of the collection of assistance information may be carried out in a dedicated maintenance mode The external communication interface may be adapted to receive data relating to maintenance of other parts of the GUI as well whereby a single maintenance episode may update both the collection of assistance information and for instance the main information contained in the menus This setup enables a communicative link to be established from the appliance to an external site such as a customer service centre user support forum repair service or the like even though the external site may be geographically remote The communi cation link can be used to distribute software updates soft ware upgrades and accompanying updates to a menu system executed by the GUI in the appliance Manually entered mes sages automatic error messages identifying a failure condi tion in the appliance semi automatic repair orders spare part orders and the like may be transmitted over the communica tion link in the opposite direction towards the external site The communication link may be wired or wireless 0017 Advantageously the processing means is adapted to generate a new collection of assistance information on the basis of instructions received at the external communication in
7. ch the blocks relate for the purpose of extracting assistance items however the spatial relative posi tions of these functional blocks are unimportant and are pref erably omitted from the data record for simplicity When the assistance mode is entered from a menu view the processing means generates and displays an assistance page containing an assistance menu comprising selectable assistance items which have been extracted as a function of the content of the menu view from which the assistance mode was entered As such one assistance item may appear in one assistance menu only that is this exact assistance menu is only generated from a particular menu view One or more assistance items in one assistance menu may however appear in assistance menus associated with many other or even all menu views in the menu system An assistance item appearing in all assistance menus regardless of the menu views from which they were generated may be regarded as static items Contact details to a service centre which may be of use in all operating modes of the appliance are preferably presented as static assistance menu items 0011 Preferably said data record which indicates the information currently shown in the visual display when the assistance mode was entered is maintained unchanged throughout the assistance mode The information in the data record may be used to facilitate navigation namely by show ing information corresponding to the c
8. d the appliance 100 via its external com munication interface 140 are connected to a communication network 580 The external communication interface 140 receives update information which is in this example a new instance of a variable portion of the assistance information e g all textual information which is used as a basis for generating a new collection of assistance information 122 The appliance 100 further comprises a memory storing a static data record 510 which may be protected from any amendments or from amendments ordered by unauthorised parties and is also used as a basis for generating said new collection of assistance information 122 The static record contains information which a system designer has identified as being less prone or suitable to change e g certain pictorial information style sheets After new update information has been received at the communication interface 140 and pos sibly after a message triggering the start of the maintenance process has been received the microprocessor 121 is con figured to generate a new collection of assistance information 122 by concatenating input from the external communication interface 140 and the static data record 510 and carrying out any formatting and similar actions that may be necessary to obtain a collection of assistance information 122 that is ready to use 0045 FIG 6 illustrates a process for generating new assis tance information by user interaction The
9. e g an area of a touch screen a mechanical knob or button which are communicatively coupled to a processing means Together the display and the input means may be regarded as a GUI The processing means is operable to invoke a specified control action e g changing an operating condition of the appliance or browsing between menu pages in response to actuation of the first touch sensi tive input means The first touch sensitive input means is preferably a soft button in the sense that its significance may change over time and or with respect to different operating conditions so that it can be associated with different control actions in different operating modes To verify what control action is currently associated with the first touch sensitive input means the user may consult the visual display which when controlled by the processing means may display textual or graphic information indicating this 0005 The inventors have realized that information can be organized not only into different views e g menu pages and spatially within a particular view but also conceptually speaking along a further dimension Accordingly as set forth in the independent claims the invention proposes devices and methods enabling an assistance mode in which one or more Oct 23 2014 assistance items are shown on the visual display The process ing means is configured to store a collection of assistance information e g a database and t
10. e parallax compensation is preferably adapted specifically for a particu lar installed appliance The parallax compensation may also be specifically adapted to a particular user as body height vision defects and various behavioural parameters may lead to significant differences between persons The user currently interacting with the appliance may identify him or herself through a login procedure or may be biometrically identified en route 0052 In particular the processing means may be adapted to compute a mean deviation or median or suitable quantile with respect to at least one spatial direction of locations of past tactile activations of regions of the touch screen and the respective centres of the regions The processing means then uses said computed mean deviation or a predefined percent age thereof as the distance to be used in the parallax com pensation In a further development of this the processing means is operable in a calibration mode in which a user is requested to touch predetermined regions to allow computa tion of a mean deviation 0053 Further embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to a person skilled in the art after studying the description above Even though the present description and drawings disclose embodiments and examples the inven tion is not restricted to these specific examples Numerous modifications and variations can be made without departing from the scope of the present
11. erein the former control present and or future conditions prevailing in the appliance other than in the processing means and visual display such as a start of a wash cycle or start of a sleep mode The navigation commands may be used to enter and leave different parts of a menu system executed by the processing means and shown by the visual display and so will have a limited impact on the physical reality outside the menu system In particular an inadvertent entry of a navigation command will not spend energy or time and need not be subject to the same precautionary measures Based hereon it is advantageous to configure the guard mechanism with a further rule US 2014 0317501 Al 0027 The processing means responds to an invoked operational command by requesting a separate confir matory activation The confirmatory activation may relate to activating a differ ent touch sensitive input means This gives the user yet another opportunity to cancel a control action that he or she has initiated inadvertently Accordingly the navigation com mands are not subject to the separate confirmatory activation which facilitates navigation around the menu system 0028 Ina further development of the preceding embodi ment the potential cancellation of a control action is facili tated by storage of an indication regarding the content of the screen image from which the invocation of the control action was initiated The storage may be in the form of
12. h are preferably visu ally distinctive The second input means 213 is similarly to the embodiment shown in FIG 1 associated with the assis tance mode 0041 FIG 3 is a view 300 of a menu system for an appli ance of the type shown in FIGS 1 and 2 The view 300 is comprised of an macro navigation section 310 a fine naviga tion section 320 and navigation means 330 which may be provided in the form of touch sensitive areas in the displayed image or may be buttons separate from the display Alterna tively if the display is touch sensitive the navigation may be commanded by finger gestures e g horizontal swipes for macro navigation vertical swipes for fine navigation and taps for selection The macro navigation section 310 is operable to cyclically browse between menu views 311 to 315 which may in a cooking appliance be views relating to conventional baking steam cooking fan assisted cooking service func tionalities and grill cooking The fine navigation section 320 may change in response to browsing between different menu views For example the menu items 321 322 323 shown in FIG 3 relate to the fan assisted cooking only and will be replaced by other items in other menu views In particular several menu views may include an item with an assistance symbol similar to that of the third menu item 323 this item 323 is used for entering the assistance mode but because of the contextual matching of assistance items to menu v
13. he collection of assistance information includes items generated by user inter action such as at least one in the group comprising a frequently asked question a user rated assistance item US 2014 0317501 Al 6 The appliance of claim 2 wherein the external commu nication interface 140 is further configured to transmit data relating to a failure condition prevailing in the appliance to a remote site 7 The appliance of claim 1 wherein the second touch sensitive input means is a single button 113 the processing means is configured to maintain a data record 701 containing data relating to indications cur rently shown on the visual display the processing means is configured to associate the data record with the one or more assistance items to be extracted from the collection of assistance information and the processing means is configured to show in the assis tance mode an initial assistance menu from which the one or more assistance items extracted by the processing means are individually selectable by a user 8 The appliance of claim 7 wherein the processing means is configured to show an initial assistance menu that further comprises at least one static item 9 The appliance of claim 7 wherein the processing means is configured to maintain the data record unchanged in the assistance mode and to exit the assistance mode by showing indications corresponding to the content of the data record on the visual display
14. iews the appearance of the assistance menu opened in response to activating the third menu item 323 may vary between menu views The third menu item 323 as well as its counterparts in different menu views therefore realizes a second touch sen sitive input means in the sense of the present invention 0042 Alternatively the assistance mode may be activated by asecond touch sensitive input means in the form ofa static area of a touch screen or a button located outside the display US 2014 0317501 Al 0043 FIG 4 is another exemplifying view 400 of a menu system which enables a user to perform macro navigation by selecting an item e g fan assisted cooking in a first column 401 whereby items relating to the selection appear in a sec ond column 402 in a hierarchic fashion Fine navigation is performed by selection of an item e g fan speed from said second column 402 upon which selection a third column 403 with selectable further menu items appears e g different fan speeds As suggested by the symbols the content of the menus may be exactly as in the menu system of FIG 3 including the item for invoking assistance mode and it is possible to represent the same structure of hierarchic menus using either one of the menu systems 0044 FIG 5 illustrates information flows during a main tenance process for updating the assistance information in the appliance 100 A remote site 599 at which update informa tion is prepared an
15. iggers the maintenance mode This makes it possible to distribute the data necessary for maintenance of the collection of assistance information over an extended period which may be advantageous if bandwidth is limited but to carry these maintenance actions out at a well defined point in time This is useful to avoid divergences between different instances of the same appliance type with respect to the soft ware installed and particularly with respect to the assistance information 0020 In this group of embodiments where the assistance information in an appliance can be updated after its assem blage and delivery to the consumer the assistance informa tion may include information produced by the user of the appliance and or other users of the same appliance type For instance the user generated information may include user rated assistance items discussion threads frequently asked questions questions and answers recipes how to items as well as social media items like images videos polls top lists etc 0021 Ina third group of embodiments there are provided appliances with visual displays capable of more accurate and reliable interaction with a user The inventors have realized that display systems that are rich in information may suffer from overcrowding wherein the visual features are so small that they are difficult to perceive visually and hard to actuate In the third group of embodiments this problem is solved by config
16. ile disks DVD or other optical disk storage magnetic cassettes magnetic tape magnetic disk storage or other mag netic storage devices or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by acomputer Further it is well known to the skilled person that communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions data structures program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media 1 An appliance 100 comprising a visual display 111 211 for showing indications about conditions prevailing in the appliance a first touch sensitive input means 112 114 212 and a processing means 120 which is communicatively coupled to the visual display and the touch sensitive input means and which is configured to associate the touch sensitive input means with a control action selectable from a plurality of control actions in respect of the appliance and to indicate using the visual display the control action with which the touch sensitive input means is currently asso ciated characterized in that the processing means is configured to store a collection of assistance information containing assistance items wherein the collection of assistance information preferably comprises at least one in the group comprising textual information pictorial information aural informat
17. interface user friendly and simple to handle The problem of structuring information in graphical user interfaces GUIs for household appliances has been addressed in several ref erences For instance WO 2005 26620 discloses a domestic cooking appliance with a display means adapted to output different information in different operating states of the appli ance offering situation related information to the user Such display means may be configured to hide information that is not related to the current operating state so as to allow the user to focus on the relevant information However even the quantity of information pertaining to a particular operating state may easily overwhelm a user especially during the initial learning phase or when the appliance is being dis played in a retail store and buying decisions are to be taken Hence there is a need for improved GUIs for household appliances SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0003 In view of the above shortcomings of the prior art it is an object of the present invention to propose a man ma chine interface wherein the information is organized in an improved manner It is a particular object to hide certain information from the user if this information is currently of lesser relevance 0004 An appliance may be equipped with control means in the form of a visual display for outputting information e g an indication about conditions in the appliance and first touch sensitive input means
18. invention which is defined by the accompanying claims Any reference signs appearing in the claims are not to be understood as limiting their scope 0054 The systems and methods disclosed hereinabove may be implemented as software firmware hardware or a combination thereof In a hardware implementation the divi sion of tasks between functional units referred to in the above description does not necessarily correspond to the division into physical units to the contrary one physical component may have multiple functionalities and one task may be car ried out by several physical components in cooperation Cer tain components or all components may be implemented as software executed by a digital signal processor or micropro cessor or be implemented as hardware or as an application specific integrated circuit Such software may be distributed on computer readable media which may comprise computer storage media or non transitory media and communication media or transitory media As is well known to a person skilled in the art the term computer storage media includes both volatile and nonvolatile removable and non removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions data structures program modules or other data Computer storage media includes but is not limited to RAM ROM EEPROM Oct 23 2014 flash memory or other memory technology CD ROM digital versat
19. ion and in that the appliance further comprises a second touch sensitive input means 113 213 for entering an assis tance mode wherein the processing means is configured to extract one or more assistance items to be shown on the visual display from the collection of assistance information on the basis of indications present on the visual display at the moment of activation of the second touch sensitive input means 2 The appliance of any of claim 1 further comprising an external communication interface 140 communicatively coupled to the processing means and configured to receive external instructions relating to addition and or removal of assistance items in the collection of assistance information 3 The appliance of claim 2 wherein the processing means is operable in a maintenance mode in which it implements instructions received at the external communication interface by amending the stored collection of assistance information and in which it generates a new collection of assistance infor mation on the basis of a static data record 510 and the received instructions 4 The appliance of claim 2 wherein the processing means is configured to enter a maintenance mode in which it imple ments instructions received at the external communication interface by amending the stored collection of assistance information in response to a message received at the external communication interface 5 The appliance of claim 2 wherein t
20. layed when the assistance mode is entered from a specific menu page can be retrieved from a lookup table associating menu pages with assistance items 0013 It is currently envisaged to apply the invention to household domestic appliances preferably cooking appli ances and most preferably ovens or microwave ovens 0014 A second group of embodiments of the present invention is intended to mitigate or overcome a problem identified by the inventors They have realized that the static nature of user s manuals are sometimes an obstacle to subse quent improvement of existing products Both minor improvements such as bug fixes in software upgrades and the inclusion of new functionalities of potential utility to the user may be rejected for the sole reason that the product has already been released to consumers and it is too late to update the accompanying manuals This problem arises both when the user s manual is distributed as an electronic document stored on a memory in the appliance and when it is distributed as a paper manual It is noted that the features encountered in this group of embodiments may be practised independently of the other features of the invention 0015 To achieve this the processing means within the appliance further comprises an external communication interface for receiving data or instructions relating to main tenance of the collection of assistance information by way of addition removal or replacement of
21. least a microprocessor 121 and a memory 122 for storing inter alia assistance informa tion The memory 122 may for instance be organized as a database preferably a relational database from which items can be extracted individually in response to queries in a per se known fashion The user interface 110 includes a visual dis play 111 and several touch sensitive input means 112 113 114 The user interface 110 executes a menu system In the appliance 100 shown in FIG 1 the first and third input means 112 114 are soft buttons which are in each menu view associated with particular control actions affecting the oper ating conditions in the appliance e g by sending control information to the functional components 131 132 133 or associated with browsing actions relative to the menu system The control action currently associated with each input means 112 114 may for example be indicated by text or symbols in the lower portion of the display 111 The second touch sen sitive input means 113 is associated with an assistance mode in which the display 111 shows assistance information extracted by the microprocessor 121 from the memory 122 in the processing means 120 0040 FIG 2 shows an appliance similar to that of FIG 1 however equipped with a touch sensitive display 211 instead of the conventional display 111 First and second touch sensitive input means 212 213 are provided in the form of areas in the touch sensitive screen whic
22. o extract those assistance items therein that are relevant to the page currently displayed when the assistance mode is activated For instance this may be achieved by storing associations between assistance items and information susceptible of being displayed so that an assistance page may be dynamically generated or rendered on the basis of the information currently displayed at the moment of activation Since the assistance items to be dis played are extracted contextually i e in response to the content of the display at the moment when the assistance mode was entered the assistance mode offers the user a shortcut to the relevant assistance information Preferably the appliance comprises a second touch sensitive input means for entering the assistance mode Like the first touch sensitive input means it may be either a touch sensitive display area or a mechanical button or knob 0006 Thus the information e g static information about the appliance current state information measurements available control actions assistance items susceptible of being displayed by the visual display is structured both the matically and with respect to its expected frequency of use Generally speaking the thematic structure manifests itself by the partition into menu views which may be associated with each of the available operating states of the appliance while the frequency of use may translate into a partition into main information and assi
23. of a touch screen The guard mechanism may comprise one or more of the following rules 0024 The processing means responds only to a release of an object e g finger from the first touch sensitive input means In other words only a complete applica tion and release cycle will be perceived as a tactile acti vation by the processing means For instance if the user realizes that his or her finger has touched an unintended region the option of sliding the finger out of the region may avoid submitting an inadvertent control action to the appliance 0025 The processing means responds to an application of an object e g finger to the first touch sensitive input means by displaying a visual indication identifying the first touch sensitive input means In particular the visual indication may relate to the control action with which the touch sensitive input means is associated Hence during the time period between application and release of the object an indication is shown alerting the user of the control action that will be submitted if the tactile activation is completed Preferably the indication is shown in an area of the screen where it is not hidden by the touching object 0026 Further the guard mechanism can be specifically adapted to a partition of the control actions as to the serious ness of an inadvertent activation For instance the control actions may be divided into operational commands and navi gation commands wh
24. of the present invention 0034 FIGS 3 and 4 are exemplary views of menu systems suitable to be applied in connection with the present inven tion 0035 FIG 5 schematically illustrates a process of dynamically updating a collection of assistance information 0036 FIG 6 schematically illustrates a process of gener ating assistance information through user interaction and 0037 FIG 7 is an exemplary sequence of menu views produced by a menu system in an appliance according to the present invention 0038 Unless otherwise indicated like reference numbers are used to indicate like drawing items DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS 0039 FIG 1 shows an appliance 100 such as a cooking appliance or in particular an oven or microwave oven com prising a control section 120 functional components 131 132 133 controllable by electric signals from the processing means 120 a user interface 110 enabling a user to communi cate with the processing means 120 and an external commu nication interface 140 enabling the processing means 120 to transmit data to external entities or sites and or to receive data Oct 23 2014 from such entity or site The external communication 140 interface may be a wired interface such as an Ethernet adapter or memory card reader It may also be wireless e g a Bluetooth Zigbee or WLAN adapter or an antenna for communication over a wireless telephone network The pro cessing means 120 comprises at
25. on trolling present and or future conditions prevailing in the appliance other than in the processing means and visual display and navigation commands and the guard mechanism includes that the processing means responds to an invoked operational command by requesting a separate confirmatory activation 14 The appliance of claim 13 wherein the guard mechanism further includes that the processing means responds to an invoked operational command by further storing information relating to a screen image from which the operational command is invoked and that it responds to a failing confirmatory activation by returning to this screen image 15 A computer implemented method of updating a collec tion of assistance information stored in a processing means 120 in an appliance 100 which is equipped with an exter nal communication interface 140 communicatively coupled to the processing means the method being performed at a remote site 599 and comprising the steps of preparing an executable update instruction relating to addi tion and or deletion of assistance items in the collection of assistance information transmitting the update instruction for execution at the appliance by means of a wired wireless or portable data carrier and receiving a confirmation of completion of the update from the appliance
26. on the basis of the primary control action associated with the first region of the touch screen 0050 Ina further embodiment a touch screen in an appli ance comprises a visual display surface and a touch sensitive surface The two surfaces are substantially parallel to one another and axially separated by some distance such as at least 2 mm such as at least 4 mm The separation may be necessary for reasons of heat insulation or for protecting the visual display surface against sharp objects The two surfaces may be separated by a transparent plate a laminated plate or US 2014 0317501 Al by two parallel transparent plates with an intermediate air gap By a parallax related effect a geometric deviation between regions of the visual and the touch sensitive surfaces arise when the visual display is viewed from an oblique angle as is often the case of domestic appliances for which both floor level mounting and elevated mounting are foreseen This makes accurate interaction with the touch screen less intuitive In view of this the processing means is operable to apply a parallax compensation by which locations of tactile activations of the touch screen are shifted by a distance in at least one screen direction The distance and the screen direc tion are chosen in order that the parallax error is partially or completely compensated 0051 Since the placement and mounting of the appliance has a considerable impact on the parallax error th
27. ontent of the data record on the visual display when the assistance mode is exited This way when a user exits the assistance mode after having studied the assistance information he or she will return to a display image identical or quasi identical disre garding clocks and the like to the one from which he or she invoked the assistance mode In order that the display image e g menu view to which the user exits the assistance mode faithfully reproduces the previous display image the data record preferably encodes the displayed information in suf ficient detail that a visually identical display image can be generated This may require the data record to be richer in content than in the case where the data record is merely used to control the extraction of assistance items 0012 If the menu system executed by the GUI is com posed of predefined pages each comprising possibly static information combined with areas for browsing commanding control actions etc and being interrelated by a browsing structure then it is advantageous to associate each page with anidentifier The pages may be selected from a page database which links each identifier to more comprehensive page information sufficient to generate the visual image of the page The data record may then simply contain the identifier of the currently displayed page which requires limited stor age space Advantageously the assistance items that are to be Oct 23 2014 disp
28. ppliance according to the invention Below each menu view there is a touch sensitive input means labelled with an assistance symbol i for acti vating the assistance mode The menu system illustrated in FIG 7 is composed of pages associated with identifiers such as sc10 sc13 Next to each menu view is symbolically illus trated a data record 701 relating to the information currently shown in the visual display Since the menu system is orga nized as pages it is sufficient to store a page identifier in the data record 701 0048 The top menu view is a home view identifier sc10 as indicated by the encircled symbol in which a user may select one of three menu items each corresponding to a further menu view corresponding to an operational mode of the appliance Selecting the lowermost item which is in this example fan assisted cooking opens a menu view relating to the fan assisted cooking mode identifier sc13 with menu items such as fan speed and temperature By pressing the assistance input means i the user will open an assistance menu associated with fan assisted cooking identifier sc13a as indicated by the rightward arrow The data record 701 retains the value sc13 which identifies the page from which the assistance mode was invoked The assistance menu may contain items for obtaining deepened assistance infor mation about fan assisted cooking for getting interactive help on this subject for placing repai
29. r orders directed to errors that are typically discovered during fan assisted cook ing and for leaving the assistance mode The assistance input means i may be used both for entering and exiting the assistance mode When the user leaves the assistance mode he or she is taken to the page identified by the data record 701 that is the menu view corresponding to fan assisted cooking as indicated by the down leftward arrow The user can then continue browsing the menu system from where he or she left it 0049 In one embodiment not shown there is provided an appliance comprising a touch screen for showing indica tions about conditions prevailing in the appliance and for receiving user input and a processing means communica tively coupled to the touch screen and configured to variably associate at least one region of the touch screen with one of a plurality of control actions and further to indicate using the touch screen the control action with which the region is currently associated In the appliance the processing means is operable to associate a tactile activation of relatively shorter duration of a first region of the touch screen with a primary control action and to associate a tactile activation of relatively longer duration of the first region with an assistance mode An assistance item extracted from a collection of assistance information is then shown on the touch screen wherein the assistance item to be shown is extracted
30. rams symbols icons still and moving images aural information e g speech music sampled synthesized or recorded sounds Within the inventive concept assistance items may as well include tactile and haptic information e g Braille print vibrations and the like 0009 Preferable ways of generating or rendering an assistance page on the basis of a menu view will now be discussed The features for enabling the generation which characterize a first group of embodiments are useful alone and may be practiced independently of the other inventive features US 2014 0317501 Al 0010 Since experienced users access assistance informa tion relatively seldom as already discussed above it is pref erable to limit the second touch sensitive input means to a single mechanical button or knob or to a single area of the touch screen The processing means is adapted to maintain a data record preferably a non permanent data record in a volatile memory relating to the information currently shown in the visual display The data record may be a full copy of the display content but is preferably limited to the information needed to determine what assistance item s is are to be displayed Generally speaking it is advantageous to represent the display content in terms of its semantic content rather than its graphic form For example the display content may be partitioned into functional blocks and described by a list of the functions to whi
31. remote site 599 and a plurality of appliances 100 all of which may be located in different geographic sites are interconnected via a com munication network 580 In an initial step a first appliance 100a sends a question Q via the network 580 to the remote site 599 A response A which is preferably self contained as to its content is generated in manual or automatic fashion at the remote site 599 and is transmitted to the first appliance 100a and to all further connected appliances 1008 100c 100d The users of the further connected appliances 1005 100c 100d may or may not read the response A immediately but the appliances 1004 100c 100d may include the response A in their respective collections of assistance information for later reference 0046 Many variations to the process shown in FIG 6 can be envisaged considering that the question Q and response A can be replaced by other information without affecting the technical features of the connected devices For instance the question Q may be replaced by a message encoding a rating of an assistance item Was this helpful by a user of the first appliance 100a and the response A may be a summary of ratings from different users This way if assistance items are Oct 23 2014 amended by adding the rating summary navigation can be facilitated by favouring highly rated assistance items 0047 FIG 7 illustrates a sequence of menu views which may be produced during use of an a
32. stance information Assistance informa tion which may include instructions for use troubleshooting information and support details is typically consulted less frequently than the main information especially after an ini tial learning period and may advantageously be localized in the assistance mode so that it is hidden from the user except when the assistance mode is active The invention therefore provides for a menu system with clearly arranged visually distinct menu pages which is still rich in information thanks to the additional depth afforded by the assistance mode 0007 Advantageously the activation of the assistance mode from a menu page changes the menu page into an assistance page containing all assistance items that are rel evant in view of the menu page If several assistance items are shown the user can easily browse through these in the assis tance mode and select the one he or she needs This is pre ferred over the option of associating each menu page with several input means that lead to different sets of assistance items One drawback of such a solution is that navigation efficiency requires each such input means to carry an indica tion regarding the associated assistance item s which occu pies valuable space that could otherwise have been used to display the main information on the menu page 0008 The assistance items may comprise textual informa tion e g characters pictorial information e g pictog
33. terface and also of a static data record Suitably the static record contains a portion of the data that has been identified as relatively less prone to change e g the hierarchic structure of the menu system and graphic decorative material while the instructions to be received at the external communication interface relate to a portion of the data that is typically more variable Such more variable portion may relate to the word ing of menu texts association of menu information and assis tance items etc In the maintenance mode the processing means combines information from both the static record and the instructions received by the external communication interface formats these into user readable form if necessary and stores the output data as a collection of assistance infor US 2014 0317501 Al mation The collection of assistance information thus gener ated replaces the previous version of the collection and this constitutes the update In the maintenance mode the process ing means may compile computer readable code execute formatting commands or interpret presentational mark up and other codes defined by a mark up language such as HTML XML CSS and the like Output data other than assistance items may be stored in other forms than in said collection An advantage in separating the data underlying the assistance items into a static and an variable portion is that a smaller quantity of data needs to be transmitted to the appli
34. uring touch sensitive input means in the display system with multiple meanings depending on the duration of actua Oct 23 2014 tion More precisely the processor associates a tactile activa tion of relatively shorter duration with a primary control action and associates a tactile activation or relatively longer duration with a secondary control action The secondary con trol action may be to enter an assistance mode of the type described previously As one example a touch sensitive mean may react to a short press by entering oven cooking settings while a long press will enter oven help Clearly the appliance may additionally include plural further touch sensitive input means 0022 This group of embodiments is particularly useful when the display device is a touch screen wherein the first touch sensitive input means may be a sensitive region of the touch screen As a screen image becomes populated with a greater number of sensitive regions the size of each decreases and so the probability that a user inadvertently touches and activates an adjacent region grows According to this embodiment however the number of sensitive regions needed to encode a given number of functions can be limited so that each remains conveniently large 0023 Ina further development there is provided a guard mechanism for avoiding inadvertent tactile activation of the first touch sensitive input means which as noted above may be a region
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