Patent ID: 7707517

Claim:
A method for laying out graphical icons, wherein all the steps are performed on a suitably programmed computer, comprising: maintaining a collection of documents; determining a plurality of attributes associated with the documents; receiving a request for visualization of the documents based on a first attribute; determining icons for the documents matching the first attribute; assigning icons to rows based on a second attribute of the documents, wherein each row contains N or fewer icons; labeling each row with a row indicator indicating a common value for the second attribute for the icons within each row; assigning icons to groups based on the first attribute of the documents in which a plurality of groups are determined; placing the icons in each group in successive portions of each row; separating each group with an inter-group indicator comprising a visual signal indication of a logical difference between each group; ordering the icons in the same row and group by a third attribute of the documents; organizing the icons into variably dimensioned columns based on the number of icons in each group in each row and the size of the inter-group indicator; laying out the icons associated with each row in a display space wide enough to contain N+k icons for some non-negative number k, wherein k is at least one of: a positive integer, 0, a non-negative integer plus a fraction; placing a first group of icons on a first end of each row and a second group of icons on the opposite end of each row; placing icons on backgrounds indicating group membership, in which the background comprises at least one of: a display characteristic, a color, and a pattern; and placing the icons in the display space, wherein all steps are executed by a processor.