The 'Four-Box Scheme' of problem solving has long been regarded as a standard in TRIZ and science and technologies in general. Now that a huge number of models and knowledge bases have been accumulated, the Scheme has been found lacking in the meaningful general description of the contents of the four boxes. The present author has proposed the 'Six-Box Scheme of Creative Problem Solving' on the basis of detailed description of the overall structure of the USIT methodology. The procedure for performing the Scheme is already well established in the form of USIT. Implications of the 'Six-Box Scheme' with USIT are discussed in comparison with the 'Four-Box Scheme' with traditional TRIZ.

This paper was originally published in “TRIZ Home Page in Japan” in Nov 2006. Reposted in trizsite.com under the permission by Dr. Nakagawa, Editor, TRIZ Home Page in Japan. For more details please refer /eNakaTRIZSymp-USIT061025.html at the author's site.

While TRIZ and other solving procedures advise to go through a generalized problem and its generalized solution, this may cause ambiguity by analogical mapping. USIT has refined the knowledge base developed in TRIZ without relying on analogical mapping.

The overall structure of creative problem solving in USIT has been built into a six-box scheme in the dataflow representation. User's specific but vague problem should be converted into a well-defined user's problem, and analyzed to obtain understandings of the present system and of its ideal system, then transformed (by USIT operators for solution generation) into ideas of new system(s), and further built into conceptual solutions, and finally implemented into user's specific solutions.

This paper was originally published in “TRIZ Home Page in Japan” in Jun 2005. Reposted in trizsite.com under the permission by Dr. Nakagawa, Editor, TRIZ Home Page in Japan. For original contents please refer /enakatrizcon2005-usit-6box.html at author’s site.

One of particular features in the TRIZ community in Japan in comparison to the World is its emphasis on easier and more unified way of studying and applying TRIZ. USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking), originally developed by Ed Sickafus under the influence of SIT (in Israel) and TRIZ, has been introduced in Japan since 1999 and has been further improved and penetrated in Japan, as you see several USIT papers presented in Japan TRIZ Symposium last year and this year. USIT has been improved in Japan in the two principal aspects. ...

This paper was originally published in “TRIZ Home Page in Japan” in Sep 2008. Reposted in trizsite.com under the permission by Dr. Nakagawa, Editor, TRIZ Home Page in Japan. For original contents please refer /enakausitjapan-trizsymp2008-080916.html at author’s site.

The graphical user interface has become popular because of its simplicity and user friendliness. The user can do very complex operations through GUI by simple pointer movements. One of its major drawbacks is that it consumes active display area. Every icon, every window and every other GUI element occupies some amount of screen space. It is desirable to display more GUI features within the limited amount of display screen.

Adding another dimension to a graphical user interface can yield tremendous benefits such as improving aesthetics, data presentation, screen-space utilization and user friendliness. The user can easily locate the objects in a three-dimensional environment by using his spatial memory. Many people think that a three-dimensional GUI is the future of the current trend in the evolution of graphical user interface.

The evolution of computing technology has witnessed tremendous growth in the processing power of the computer. The memory and storage capabilities are also increasing year after year. In contrast to the above, the display area of a PC monitor remains the same. This inhibits the productivity of a computer, as the user does not just have enough view area to interact with the computer.

Ideally the display screen should accommodate all required data, objects and GUI elements for user interaction. If some data or object is hidden behind or remaining beyond the display area, it should automatically come to the front when needed by the user. If any text or image is reduced in size to save display space, it should automatically be enlarged when the user wants to view it.

The article analyzes six patents from US Patent database illustrating their background, their objectives or desired results, contradictions faced in achieving the desired results and how these inventions have solved the contradictions.