User Interface Management Systems: A Survey and a Proposed Design

The growth of interactive computing has resulted in increasingly more complex styles of interaction between user and computer. To facilitate the creation of highly interactive systems, the concept of the User Interface Management System (UIMS) has been developed. Following the definition of the term 'UIMS' and a consideration of the putative advantages of the UIMS approach, a number of User Interface Management Systems are examined. This examination focuses in turn on the run-time execution system, the specification notation and the design environment, with a view to establishing the features which an "ideal" UIMS should possess. On the basis of this examination, a proposal for the design of a new UIMS is presented, and progress reported towards the implementation of a prototype based on this design

A User Interface Management System Generator

Much recent research has been focused on user interfaces. A major advance in interface design is the User Interface Management System (UIMS), which mediates between the application and the user. Our research has resulted in a conceptual framework for interaction which permits the design and implementation of a UIMS generator system. This system, called Graphical User Interface Development Environment or GUIDE, allows an interface designer to specify interactively the user interface for an application. The major issues addressed by this methodology are making interfaces implementable, modifiable and flexible, allowing for user variability, making interfaces consistent and allowing for application diversity within a user community. The underlying goal of GUIDE is that interface designers should be able to specify interfaces as broadly as is possible with a manually-coded system. The specific goals of GUIDE are: The designer need not write any interface code. Action routines are provided by the designer or application implementator which implement the actions or operations of the application system. Action routines may have parameters. The designer is able to specify multiple control paths based on the state of the system and a profile of the user. Inclusion of help and prompt messages is as easy as possible. GUIDE\u27s own interface may be generated with GUIDE. GUIDE goes beyond previous efforts in UIMS design in the full parameter specification provided in the interface for application actions, in the ability to reference application global items in the interface, and in the pervasiveness of conditions throughout the system. A parser is built into GUIDE to parse conditions and provide type-checking. The GUIDE framework describes interfaces in terms of three components: what the user sees of the application world (user-defined pictures and user-defined picture classes) what the user can do (tasks and tools) what happens when the user does something (actions and decisions) These three are combined to form contexts which describe the state of the interface at any time

User Interface (UI) Discovery Application To Measure Query Accuracy On Interface Repository

SaaS (Software as a Service) application has many architecture layers, those are: data layer, service layer, process layer, and UI layer. UI layer is a GUI layer which has function to prepare the interface both system and user receiving input from user and show back to user. This research tells about how to build user interface (UI) discovery as a part of software based on SaaS. The aim of this application is to make easier user for finding user interface which appropriate needed configuration. This UI discovery application is developed by using ontology theory, those are RDF map and query SPARQL. The working way of UI discovery is entering the keywords which contain form name, or component details needed. UI discovery will search based on the entering keywords automatically. The trials will use two search models, those are data search and detail search. The calculation result of those both trials are from recall score 95%, accuracy score 100%, and precision score with different percentage. The percentage of data search model is 95%, while on detail search model is 90%. Those differences found because of some of irrelevant document found on detail search and netted query. Therefore, on data search shows that the result is more relevant and shows the better of system's prosperity.  Keywords : Software as a service; discovery; query accuracy; interface repositor

Formal functional testing of graphical user interfaces.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX177960 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Scalable User Interfaces for the Web / by Arman Danesh.

This thesis describes a new approach to developing and delivering user interfaces for Web applications. This approach, termed Scalable User Interfaces (SUI), is designed to allow a developer to create a single user interface definition for a Web application which can then be consumed, rendered and used by any device on the network. These devices can range from small displays such as mobile telephones to the full desktop-sized monitor displays used by personal computers. The goal of Scalable User Interfaces is to allow a single specification to be deployed on all devices without the need for the developer to specify any device-specific vocabularies, transformations, hinting or style sheets such as previous work in automated rendering for mixed displays and work in platform-independent user interface specification. Scalable User Interfaces provides a Flash-based implementation which highlights the utility of Flash as a tool for user interface design and research. Our work also illustrates the application of recursive rendering in laying out forms for various-sized displays

Adaptive model-driven user interface development systems

Adaptive user interfaces (UIs) were introduced to address some of the usability problems that plague many software applications. Model-driven engineering formed the basis for most of the systems targeting the development of such UIs. An overview of these systems is presented and a set of criteria is established to evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of the state-of-the-art, which is categorized under architectures, techniques, and tools. A summary of the evaluation is presented in tables that visually illustrate the fulfillment of each criterion by each system. The evaluation identified several gaps in the existing art and highlighted the areas of promising improvement

Surface interaction : separating direct manipulation interfaces from their applications.

To promote both quality and economy in the production of applications and their interactive interfaces, it is desirable to delay their mutual binding. The later the binding, the more separable the interface from its application. An ideally separated interface can factor tasks from a range of applications, can provide a level of independence from hardware I/O devices, and can be responsive to end-user requirements. Current interface systems base their separation on two different abstractions. In linguistic architectures, for example User Interface Management Systems in the Seeheim model, the dialogue or syntax of interaction is abstracted in a separate notation. In agent architectures like Toolkits, interactive devices, at various levels of complexity, are abstracted into a class or call hierarchy. This Thesis identifies an essential feature of the popular notion of direct manipulation: directness requires that the same object be used both for output and input. In practice this compromises the separation of both dialogue and devices. In addition, dialogue cannot usefully be abstracted from its application functionality, while device abstraction reduces the designer's expressive control by binding presentation style to application semantics. This Thesis proposes an alternative separation, based on the abstraction of the medium of interaction, together with a dedicated user agent which allows direct manipulation of the medium. This interactive medium is called the surface. The Thesis proposes two new models for the surface, the first of which has been implemented as Presenter, the second of which is an ideal design permitting document quality interfaces. The major contribution of the Thesis is a precise specification of an architecture (UMA), whereby a separated surface can preserve directness without binding in application semantics, and at the same time an application can express its semantics on the surface without needing to manage all the details of interaction. Thus UMA partitions interaction into Surface Interaction, and deep interaction. Surface Interaction factors a large portion of the task of maintaining a highly manipulable interface, and brings the roles of user and application designer closer

Proposta de recursos ergonômicos para ambientes de autoria e para bibliotecas de objetos de interação reutilizáveis /

Dissertação (Mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico.O primeira meta deste estudo foi analisar e compreender como a engenharia de software, as técnicas, métodos e ferramentas formais necessárias à produção de software, tratam o desenvolvimento da interface do usuário. Esta análise evidenciou que as metodologias atualmente aplicadas na concepção de interfaces do usuário, não utilizam técnicas que busquem efetivamente especificar e avaliar os principais requisitos do usuário e da tarefa a ser informatizada. Com base nestes resultados, são apresentadas três técnicas de análise e projeto que buscam complementar estas metodologias tradicionais, fornecendo suporte para a integração de fatores humanos nas interações homem-computador (MUSE), descrevendo e analisando como a informação é utilizada durante a realização das tarefas (AIU) e gerando interfaces através de modelos de dados baseados em regras ergonômicas (GENIUS). A partir da compreensão destes métodos, realizou-se um estudo investigatório sobre ferramentas para desenvolvimento de interfaces, buscando avaliar o estado da arte destas ferramentas, verificando e apresentando as características de algumas delas, seus objetos de interação, suas potencialidades, funcionalidades e falhas. Este estudo permitiu formalizar várias considerações sobre estas ferramentas, que mescladas com requisitos ergonômicos para interfaces do usuário encontrados em vários autores e guias de estilo (Bastien & Scapin, Smith & Mosier, Motif, Microsoft, LabIUtil), formam um quadro de propostas de recursos ergonômicos para um possível ambiente de autoria e seus respectivos objetos de interação, na intenção de construir uma ferramenta com características de utilização ergonômicas, de uso fácil e que produza interfaces dentro de normas e padrões também ergonômicos

An Object-oriented methodology for modern user interface development.

by Lam Siu Hong.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter Chapter1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Software Development Crisis of User Interface --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- Objectives and Scope of Interests --- p.1Chapter 1.3 --- Overview of the Thesis --- p.2Chapter Chapter2 --- Background and Problems --- p.4Chapter 2.1 --- Categories of User Interfaces --- p.4Chapter 2.2 --- Trends of User Interfaces --- p.6Chapter 2.3 --- Some other Desirable Features and Problems of UI Development --- p.7Chapter 2.3.1 --- Separating UI from Application --- p.7Chapter 2.3.1.1 --- Benefits of Separable UIs and Applications --- p.7Chapter 2.3.1.2 --- Requirements of Complete Separation --- p.10Chapter 2.3.2 --- Instant Continuous Feedback --- p.12Chapter 2.3.2.1 --- Problems of Linguistic Model on World Model Type UIs --- p.12Chapter 2.3.3 --- Undo and Recovery --- p.15Chapter 2.3.4 --- Iterative Design through Rapid Protyping --- p.16Chapter Chapter3 --- An Object-Oriented Model for Model World User Interfaces Development --- p.18Chapter 3.1 --- Features of UIs to be supported by the Model --- p.18Chapter 3.2 --- A Linkage Model for Separating UI from Application --- p.19Chapter 3.2.1 --- Communication Messages Modeled using an Object Oriented Approach --- p.20Chapter 3.2.2 --- A Sample Message --- p.22Chapter 3.2.3 --- Linkage in a Distributed Heterogenous Environment --- p.24Chapter 3.2.4 --- Comparing the Linkage Model with the Application Interface Model in Seeheim's UI Model --- p.25Chapter 3.3 --- An Object-Oriented Model for Supporting Multiple Feedbacks and Multi-thread dialogue --- p.26Chapter 3.3.1 --- An Overview of the Model --- p.27Chapter 3.3.2 --- Objects on the Lexical Layer --- p.28Chapter 3.3.3 --- Roles of Presentation Objects --- p.29Chapter 3.3.4 --- Syntactic Objects --- p.31Chapter 3.3.5 --- Interaction Objects --- p.32Chapter 3.3.6 --- Interaction between objetcs and Linkage Component --- p.33Chapter 3.3.7 --- Multiple U-tubes Ladder for Supporting Multiple Feedbacks --- p.33Chapter 3.3.8 --- Recovery through a Generic UNDO stack --- p.35Chapter 3.3.9 --- Dialogue Control in an Object --- p.37Chapter 3.3.10 --- Interactive Objects --- p.39Chapter 3.3.11 --- An Architecture for Supporting Multi-thread Dialogue --- p.40Chapter 3.4 --- Basic Object Structure --- p.42Chapter 3.4.1 --- An Event Model for Dialogue Control --- p.43Chapter 3.4.2 --- Maintain Consistency through ε-rules --- p.45Chapter 3.4.3 --- An Example of an Inner Object Specification --- p.47Chapter 3.4.4 --- Pre and Post Condition of Action --- p.49Chapter 3.4.5 --- Automatic Message Routing --- p.49Chapter 3.5 --- Systematic Approach to UI Specification --- p.50Chapter Chapter4 --- User Interface Framework Design --- p.52Chapter 4.1 --- A Framework for UI Development --- p.52Chapter 4.1.1 --- Abstract Base Class for Each Object Type --- p.54Chapter 4.1.2 --- A Kernel for Message Routing --- p.60Chapter 4.1.3 --- Interaction Knowledge Base --- p.63Chapter 4.1.4 --- A Dynamic View of UI Objects --- p.64Chapter 4.1.5 --- Switch Box Mechanism for Dialogue Switching --- p.66Chapter 4.1.6 --- Software IC Construction --- p.68Chapter 4.2 --- Summaries of Object-Object UI Model and UI Framework --- p.70Chapter 4.2.1 --- A New Approach to User Interface Development 、 --- p.70Chapter 4.2.2 --- Feautures of UI Development provided by the Object-Object UI Model and UI Framework --- p.71Chapter Chapter5 --- Implementation --- p.73Chapter 5.1 --- Implementation of Framework in Microsoft Window Environment --- p.73Chapter 5.1.1 --- Implementation of automatic message routing through dynamic binding --- p.73Chapter 5.1.2 --- A generic message structure --- p.75Chapter 5.1.3 --- A meta class for object communication --- p.76Chapter 5.1.4 --- Software component of UI framework in Microsoft Window environment --- p.76Chapter 5.2 --- A Simple Stock Market Decision Support System (SSMDSS) --- p.77Chapter 5.2.1 --- UI Specification --- p.81Chapter 5.2.2 --- UI features supported by SSMDSS --- p.87Chapter Chapter6 --- Results --- p.89Chapter 6.1 --- Facts discovered --- p.89Chapter 6.1.1 --- Asynchronous and synchronous communication among objects --- p.89Chapter 6.1.2 --- Flexibility of the C+ + language --- p.90Chapter 6.2 --- Technical Problems Encountered --- p.91Chapter 6.2.1 --- Problems from Implementation Platform --- p.91Chapter 6.2.2 --- Problems due to Object Decomposition in an Interactive Object in SSMDSS --- p.92Chapter 6.3 --- Objectives accomplished by the Object-Oriented UI Model indicated by SSMDSS --- p.93Chapter Chapter7 --- Conclusion --- p.95Chapter 7.1 --- Thesis Summary --- p.95Chapter 7.2 --- Merits and Demerit of the Object-Oriented UI Model --- p.96Chapter 7.3 --- Cost of the Object-Oriented UI Model --- p.96Chapter 7.4 --- Future work --- p.97AppendixChapter A1 --- An Alogrithm for Converting Transition Network Diagram to Event Response Language --- p.A1Chapter A2 --- An Object-Oriented Software Development --- p.A4Chapter A2.1 --- Traditional Non Object-Oriented Software Development --- p.A4Chapter A2.2 --- An Object-Oriented Software Development --- p.A6Chapter A3 --- Vienna Development Method (VDM) --- p.A8Chapter A3.1 --- An Overview of VDM --- p.A8Chapter A3.2 --- Apply VDM to Object-Oriented UI model --- p.A10Chapter A4 --- Glossaries and Terms --- p.A12Referenc