Noisy operating system user interface
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsDavid P. Vronay, Lili Cheng, Baining Guo, Sean U. Kelly
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An operating system shell provides on a display screen a graphical user interface through which a user interacts with the operating system. The operating system shell provides a background noisy display rendered on the display screen in accordance with a background physical lighting model, and an ambient notification rendered over at least a portion of the background noisy display to provide a user notification. The ambient notification is rendered in accordance with an ambient notification physical lighting model that is different from the background physical lighting model.
Claims38
In a computer system having an operating system shell that provides on a display screen a graphical user interface through which a user interacts with the operating system, comprising:
- a background noisy display rendered on the display screen in accordance with a background physical lighting model;
- and
- an ambient notification rendered over at least a portion of the background noisy display to provide a user notification, the ambient notification being rendered in accordance with an ambient notification physical lighting model that is different from the background physical lighting model.
The system of claim A1 in which the ambient notification is of a temporary duration.
The system of claim A1 in which the ambient notification is below a just noticeable perceptual difference in the background noisy display.
The system of claim A1 in which the background noisy display includes a variation over time in the background physical lighting model.
The system of claim A1 in which the graphical user interface includes user interface objects through which the user interacts with the operating system, the ambient notification including inter-object lighting in which lighting applied to one user interface object affects one or more adjacent user interface objects.
The system of claim A1 in which the graphical user interface includes user interface objects through which the user interacts with the operating system and the ambient notification physical lighting model including a light source model, the ambient notification including a shadow formed over user interface objects and modeled as an off-screen object passing in front of the light source model.
The system of claim A1 in which the graphical user interface includes user interface objects through which the user interacts with the operating system rendered over an underlying desktop that is modeled as having a moveable surface, the ambient notification including imparting a movement in the moveable surface of the desktop.
In a computer readable medium, an operating system shell that provides on a display screen a graphical user interface through which a user interacts with an operating system, comprising:
- a noisy user interface object data structure that includes desktop element models and a lighting model, the desktop element models providing three-dimensional representations of plural noisy graphical user interface desktop objects and the lighting model having one or more light source representations that each include a light color, light intensity, and light direction;
- and
- a three-dimensional rendering engine that provides three-dimensional rendering on a display screen of noisy graphical user interface desktop objects based upon the desktop element models and the lighting model.
An operating system shell graphical user interface rendering method for providing on a display screen a graphical user interface through which a user interacts with an operating system, the method comprising:
- rendering a background noisy display rendered on the display screen in accordance with a background physical lighting model;
- and
- rendering an ambient notification rendered over at least a portion of the background noisy display to provide a user notification, the ambient notification being rendered in accordance with an ambient notification physical lighting model that is different from the background physical lighting model.
A computer system that provides on a display screen a graphical user interface through which a user interacts with computer software, comprising:
- a background noisy display rendered on the display screen in accordance with a background physical lighting model;
- and
- an ambient notification rendered over at least a portion of the background noisy display to provide a user notification, the ambient notification being rendered in accordance with an ambient notification physical lighting model that is different from the background physical lighting model.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.