Patent ID: 8271907

Claim:
A user interface method for a display device including a touch screen, comprising: displaying a menu, including a plurality of menu elements, on the touch screen; detecting a first touch over one of the displayed plurality of menu elements, including detecting a corresponding first touch characteristic; enlarging the touched menu element in response to the detected first touch characteristic while displaying but not enlarging an untouched menu element of the displayed plurality of menu elements; detecting a second touch over the enlarged menu element, including detecting a corresponding second touch characteristic; and displaying, within a corresponding touched menu element area and in response to the second touch characteristic, a sub menu icon associated with the touched menu element, wherein the step of displaying the sub menu icon includes confirming whether a movement area of the second touch exists within an enlarged menu element area, confirming whether a movement speed of the second touch exists within a range between a first reference speed and a second reference speed when the movement area of the second touch exists within the enlarged menu element area, determining a sub menu icon display speed value based on the movement speed of the second touch when the movement speed of the second touch exists within the range between the first reference speed and the second reference speed, and displaying the sub menu icon based on the determined sub menu icon display speed value while displaying the untouched menu element of the displayed plurality of menu elements but not displaying a sub menu icon corresponding to the untouched menu element of the displayed plurality of menu elements, wherein the second touch characteristic is a direction of the second touch, wherein the direction of the second touch comprises one of a first direction, a second direction and a third direction, wherein the first direction, the second direction and the third direction are different from each other, and wherein when the direction of the second touch is the first direction, the sub menu icon only represents a sub menu element that was most frequently selected by a user, when the direction of the second touch is the second direction, the sub menu icon only represents a sub menu element that was most recently selected by the user, and when the direction of the second touch is the third direction, the sub menu icon only represents a sub menu element that was previously selected as a favorite sub menu element.