Touch accommodation options

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10986252-B2
Application number	US-201916534291-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 7, 2019
Priority date	Jun 7, 2015
Publication date	Apr 20, 2021
Grant date	Apr 20, 2021

Abstract

The present disclosure generally relates to methods and devices for providing touch accommodations to users with tremors or other fine motor impairments to improve the accuracy of such users' touch inputs on touch-sensitive surfaces. Such methods and devices include various approaches for compensating for brief, inadvertent touch inputs; touch inputs with inadvertent motion across the touch-sensitive surface; and/or touch inputs with inadvertent recoil contacts. In some embodiments, the touch accommodations are implemented in a software layer separate from the application layer, such as the operating system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic device, comprising:
a display;
a touch-sensitive surface;
one or more processors;
a memory; and
one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for:
displaying, on the display, a user interface associated with an application;
detecting, on the touch-sensitive surface, a first touch input on the touch-sensitive surface including a first contact with the touch-sensitive surface;
after detecting the first touch input, detecting, on the touch-sensitive surface, a second touch input on the touch-sensitive surface including a second contact with the touch-sensitive surface;
in response to detecting the second touch input, generating second data representing at least a portion of the second touch input;
in accordance with a determination that an ignore-repeat duration setting is enabled:
determining whether the second touch input meets a set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria based on an ignore-repeat duration time period that corresponds to the ignore-repeat duration setting;
in accordance with a determination that the second touch input does not meet the set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria, providing the second data to the application; and
in accordance with a determination that the second touch input meets the set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria, which includes a criterion that is met when an amount of time between the first touch input and the second touch input is less than the ignore-repeat duration time period, forgoing providing the second data to the application; and

in accordance with a determination that the ignore-repeat duration setting is disabled, providing the second data to the application.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more programs further includes instructions for:
in response to detecting the first touch input, providing first data representing at least a portion of the first touch input to the application.

3. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the amount of time between the first touch input and the second touch input is measured starting from the time at which a liftoff of the first contact is detected.

4. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the amount of time between the first touch input and the second touch input is measured ending at the time at which a touchdown of the second contact is detected.

5. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the device does not display, in response to detecting the second touch input, a user interface element indicating detection of the second touch input, prior to providing the second data representing at least a portion of the second touch input to the application.

6. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more programs further include instructions for:
after determining that the second touch input meets the set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria, detecting, on the touch-sensitive surface, a third touch input on the touch-sensitive surface;
in response to detecting the third touch input, generating third data representing at least a portion of the third touch input; and
in accordance with a determination that the ignore-repeat duration setting is enabled:
determining whether the third touch input meets a second set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria based on the ignore-repeat duration time period;
in accordance with a determination that the third touch input meets the second set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria, which includes a criterion that is met when the amount of time between the third touch input and at least a portion of a previous touch input is less than the ignore-repeat duration time period, forgoing providing the third data to the application, and
in accordance with a determination that the third touch input does not meet the second set of one or more ignore-repeat criteria, providing the third data to the application.

7. The electronic device of claim 6 , wherein the previous touch input is the first touch input.

8. The electronic device of claim 6 , wherein the previous touch input is the second touch input.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein:
detecting the first touch input includes detecting a touchdown of the first contact at a first location on the touch-sensitive surface, movement of the first contact across the touch-sensitive surface, and liftoff of the first contact from the touch-sensitive surface at a second location on the touch-sensitive surface that is different from the first location on the touch-sensitive surface, and
providing first data representing at least a portion of the first contact to the application includes:
in accordance with a determination that a set of one or more tap-assistance criteria have been met, providing, to the application, data representing the touch input at a single location on the touch-sensitive surface, and
in accordance with a determination that the set of one or more tap-assistance criteria have not been met, providing, to the application, data representing the touch input including the movement of the first contact.

10. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the tap-assistance criteria includes a tap-timeout duration criterion that is met when the liftoff of the contact is detected before the contact has been detected on the touch-sensitive surface for longer than a predefined tap-timeout duration.

11. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the ignore-repeat duration setting is enabled in response to detecting a user request.

12. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the ignore-repeat duration time period is configured by a user.

13. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein enabling the ignore-repeat duration setting causes an option for disabling the ignore-repeat duration setting to be automatically added as an item in a settings menu.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the one or more programs further include instructions for:
while the ignore-repeat duration setting is enabled, detecting a user input;
in response to detecting the user input, determining whether the settings menu includes at least two items, including the option for disabling the ignore-repeat duration setting;
in accordance with a determination that the settings menu does not include at least two items, disabling the ignore-repeat duration setting; and
in accordance with a determination that the settings menu includes at least two items, displaying a user interface including an ignore-repeat affordance associated with the ignore-repeat duration setting.

15. The electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the one or more programs further include instructions for:
detecting a selection of the ignore-repeat affordance; and
in response to detecting the selection of the ignore-repeat affordance, disabling the ignore-repeat duration setting.

16. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the application is an active application.

17. A method, comprising:
at a device with a touch-sensitive surface and a display:
displaying, on the display, a user interface associated with an application;
detecting, on the touch-sensitive surface, a first touch input on the touch-sensitive surface including a first contact with the touch-sensitive surface;
after detecting the first touch input, detecting, on the touch-sensitive surface, a second touch input on the touch-sensitive surface including a second contact with the touch-sensitive surface;
in response to detecting

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Fleizach Christopher
• KASEMSET Clare
• Sundara Raman Nandini Kannamangalam

Classifications

• G06F3/0486 Primary

  Drag-and-drop · CPC title

• G06F3/04883

  for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text · CPC title

• H04N3/155 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic