Patent ID: 7168042

Claim:
A method, comprising: determining a force effect to be output at least partially based on user preference information, the user preference information including information associated with at least one type of graphical object from a plurality of types of graphical objects, the at least one type of graphical object being associated with a graphical user interface, the user preference information further including information associated with a least one force effect from a plurality of force effects, each force effect from the plurality of force effects being associated with a type of graphical object from the plurality of types of graphic objects; outputting a signal configured to cause the at least one force effect to be output when a cursor displayed in the graphical user interface interacts with a graphical object having a first type from the at least one type, the graphical object being associated with an application program from a plurality of application programs configured to run simultaneously, each application program from the plurality of application programs being configured to associate a force effect from the plurality of force effects with a graphical object from a plurality of graphical objects associated with that application program, each application program from the plurality of application programs providing information to a background application program about graphical objects associated with that application program.