A second generation user interface design environment: the model and the runtime architecture

ABSTRACT

Several obstacles exist in the user interface design process which distract a developer from designing a good user interface. One of the problems is the lack of an application model to keep the designer in perspective with the application. The other problem is having to deal with massive user interface programming to achieve a desired interface and to provide users with correct help information on the interface. In this paper, we discuss an application model which captures information about the application to specifications of a desired interface. The application model is then used to control the dialogues at runtime and can be used by a help component to automatically generate animated and textual help. Specification changes in the application model will automatically result in behavioral changes in the interface.

REFERENCES

• 1: Luca Cardelli, Building user interfaces by direct manipulation, Proceedings of the 1st annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User Interface Software, p.152-166, October 17-19, 1988, Alberta, Canada [doi>10.1145/62402.62428]
• 2: Cossey, G. Pro to typer. SmetherBarnes, Portland, Oregon, 1989.
• 3: Dennis J. M. J. de Baar , James D. Foley , Kevin E. Mullet, Coupling application design and user interface design, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.259-266, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142806]
• 4: J. Foley , C. Gibbs , S. Kovacevic, A knowledge-based user interface management system, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.67-72, May 15-19, 1988, Washington, D.C., United States [doi>10.1145/57167.57178]
• 5: James Foley , Won Chul Kim , Srdjan Kovacevic , Kevin Murray, UIDE—an intelligent user interface design environment, Intelligent user interfaces, ACM Press, New York, NY, 1991 [doi>10.1145/107215.128716]
• 6: Daniel F. Gieskens , James D. Foley, Controlling user interface objects through pre- and postconditions, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.189-194, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142787]
• 7: Philip J. Hayes , Pedro A. Szekely , Richard A. Lerner, Design alternatives for user interface management sytems based on experience with COUSIN, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.169-175, April 1985, San Francisco, California, United States
• 8: Inference Corporation. ART Reference Manual. Inference Corporation, Los Angeles, CA, 1987.
• 9: Won Chul Kim , James D. Foley, DON: user interface presentation design assistant, Proceedings of the 3rd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.10-20, October 03-05, 1990, Snowbird, Utah, United States [doi>10.1145/97924.97926]
• 10: Srdjan Kovačevic, A compositional model of human-computer dialogues, Multimedia interface design, ACM Press, New York, NY, 1992 [doi>10.1145/146022.146102]
• 11: Mark A. Linton , John M. Vissides , Paul R. Calder, Composing User Interfaces with InterViews, Computer, v.22 n.2, p.8-22, February 1989 [doi>10.1109/2.19829]
• 12: Myers, B. Creating Interaction Techniques by Demonstrations. IEEE Transactions on Computer Graphics and Applications 7 (September 1987):51-60.
• 13: Brad A. Myers , Dario A. Giuse , Roger B. Dannenberg , David S. Kosbie , Edward Pervin , Andrew Mickish , Brad Vander Zanden , Philippe Marchal, Garnet: Comprehensive Support for Graphical, Highly Interactive User Interfaces, Computer, v.23 n.11, p.71-85, November 1990 [doi>10.1109/2.60882]
• 14: Robert Neches , Jim Foley , Pedro Szekely , Piyawadee Sukaviriya , Ping Luo , Srdjan Kovacevic , Scott Hudson, Knowledgeable development environments using shared design models, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, p.63-70, January 04-07, 1993, Orlando, Florida, United States [doi>10.1145/169891.169901]
• 15: N. J. Nilsson, Principles of artificial intelligence, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1980
• 16: Dan R. Olsen, Jr., MIKE: the menu interaction kontrol environment, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.5 n.4, p.318-344, Oct. 1986 [doi>10.1145/27623.28868]
• 17: D. R. Olsen, Jr., A programming language basis for user interface, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Wings for the mind, p.171-176, March 1989
• 18: CORPORATE Open Software Foundation, OSF/Motif style guide: revision 1.0, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1990
• 19: G. Singh , M. Green, A high-level user interface management system, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Wings for the mind, p.133-138, March 1989
• 20: Piyawadee Sukaviriya , James D. Foley, Coupling a UI framework with automatic generation of context-sensitive animated help, Proceedings of the 3rd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.152-166, October 03-05, 1990, Snowbird, Utah, United States [doi>10.1145/97924.97942]
• 21: Piyawadee Sukaviriya, Automatic generation of context-sensitive animated help, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 1992
• 22: Sukaviriya, P. and de Graaff, J. Automatic Generation of Context-sensitive "Show & Tell" Help. Technical Report GIT-GVU-92-18. Atlanta, Georgia: Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1992.
• 23: Piyawadee Noi Sukaviriya , James D. Foley, Supporting adaptive interfaces in a knowledge-based user interface environment, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, p.107-113, January 04-07, 1993, Orlando, Florida, United States [doi>10.1145/169891.169922]
• 24: SunSoft. OpenWindowsTM Developer's Guide 3.0 User's Guide. Sun Microsystems, Inc. Part No:800- 6585-10, Revision A, November 1991.
• 25: SunSoft. OLIT 3.0.1 Reference Manual. Sun Microsystems, Inc. Part-No: 800-6391-10, Revision A, june 1992.
• 26: Pedro Szekely , Ping Luo , Robert Neches, Facilitating the exploration of interface design alternatives: the HUMANOID model of interface design, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.507-515, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142912]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User interface management systems (UIMS); Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

General Terms:
Design, Languages

Keywords:
application model, automatic help generation, user interface design environment, user interface generation, user interface model