Providing RIA user interfaces with accessibility properties

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) technologies are challenging the way in which the Web is being developed. However, from the UI accessibility point of view, these technologies pose new challenges that the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C is trying to solve through the use of a standard specification for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). Currently, the introduction of properties defined in WAI-ARIA is being done in an ad-hoc manner due to the lack of models, methodologies and tools to support the design of accessible RIA UIs. In this paper we propose a semantic approach to deal with this modeling issue by extending the RUX-Method, a model-based method to build RIA UIs. The approach includes the validation process of the accessibility issues at two different levels: the UI structure and the interactions behavior.     

Contributions of Dichotomic View of plasticity to seamlessly embed accessibility and adaptivity support in user interfaces

Recent legal changes have increased the need for developing accessible user interfaces in computer-based systems. In this sense, previously existing user interfaces are intended to be modified and new user interfaces are intended to be designed taking accessibility guidelines into account. Typically, model-based approaches have been used when developing accessible user interfaces or redefining existing ones. But the use of static models leads to the development of not dynamically adaptable user interfaces. Dynamic adaptation in accessible user interfaces is important due to the fact that interaction difficulties on people with disabilities may change through use. In this paper, we present some contributions that can be obtained from the application of the Dichotomic View of plasticity in the personalization of user interfaces. With the double perspective defined in this approach, it is intended to go further from a mere adaptation to certain user stereotypes, offering also a dynamic support to real limitations or difficulties users can encounter during the use of the UI. This goal is achieved analyzing user logs by an inference engine that dynamically infers modifications in the user interface to adjust it to varying user needs. A case study is presented in order to show how the guidelines and software support defined in the Dichotomic View of plasticity can be applied to develop a component for a particular system aimed at performing dynamic user interface adaptations with accessibility purposes. This approach includes some innovations that make it different from conventional adaptable mechanisms applied to accessibility in some important aspects.     

User interfaces metamodel based on graphs

Information systems are widely used in all business areas. These systems typically integrate a set of functionalities that implement business rules and maintain databases. Users interact with these systems and use these features through user interfaces (UI). Each UI is usually composed of menus where the user can select the desired functionality, thus accessing a new UI that corresponds to the desired feature. Hence, a system normally contains multiple UIs. However, keeping consistency between these UIs of a system from a visual (organisation, component style, etc.) and behavioral perspective is usually difficult. This problem also appears in software production lines, where it would be desirable to have patterns to guide the construction and maintenance of UIs. One possible way of defining such patterns is to use model-driven engineering (MDE). In MDE, models are defined at different levels, where the bottom level is called a metamodel. The metamodel determines the main characteristics of the models of the upper levels, serving as a guideline. Each new level must adhere to the rules defined by the lower levels. This way, if anything changes in a lower level, these changes are propagated to the levels above it. The goal of this work is to define and validate a metamodel that allows the modeling of UIs of software systems, thus allowing the definition of patterns of interface and supporting system evolution. To build this metamodel, we use a graph structure. This choice is due to the fact that a UI can be easily represented as a graph, where each UI component is a vertex and edges represent dependencies between these components. Moreover, graph theory provides support for a great number of operations and transformations that can be useful for UIs. The metamodel was defined based on the investigation of patterns that occur in UIs. We used a sample of information systems containing different types of UIs to obtain such patterns. To validate the metamodel, we built the complete UI models of one new system and of four existing real systems. This shows not only the expressive power of the metamodel, but also its versatility, since our validation was conducted using different types of systems (a desktop system, a web system, mobile system, and a multiplatform system). Moreover, it also demonstrated that the proposed approach can be used not only to build new models, but also to describe existing ones (by reverse engineering).     

Automated user interface engineering with a pattern reflecting programming language

The development of the user interface concerns all aspects of a software system that are targeted to the interactive delivery of its functionality and data. Today, user interface development accounts for a large proportion of the overall software implementation, while the programming process involves various recurring software patterns. Based on the identification of key commonly occurring user interface programming patterns, we have designed and implemented a user interface programming language with built-in constructs to directly support those software patterns, offering declarative programming features such as: precondition-based actions, unidirectional constraints and data-content monitors. Initially, we introduce the deployment syntax and semantics of the novel programming elements, relying upon subject interaction scenarios. Then we reveal the most demanding implementation aspects of the code generator and the respective run-time library.     

Improving deaf users' accessibility in hypertext information retrieval: are graphical interfaces useful for them?

This paper explores the effect of substituting textual links for graphical ones on the performance of deaf signers in hypertext information retrieval (HIR). Both deaf and hearing users found more targets, were faster and became less disoriented in the verbal hypertext interface than in the graphical one. Deaf users were outperformed by hearing users in all conditions except in short paths with the graphical interface. The results and its applied consequences, which would be also relevant to other users with similar problems than those of deaf signers (elderly people, people with dyslexia, people navigating in a website using a foreign language or people with low literacy) are discussed in relation to the CoLiDeS model of web interaction (Kitajima et al. 2000) and to the overgeneralisation of 'Picture superiority effect' (Nelson et al. 1976).     

A debugger for a graphical workstation

This paper describes the ups source-level debugger. Ups, which is designed to take advantage of the graphics and mouse available on a workstation, displays the debugged program's current state in the form of a hierarchically structured document in which items of interest can be expanded to show more detail. User interaction is via a system of menus and editable subfields, the intention being to create a debugger which has a lot of functionality but is easy to learn and easy to remember. The paper describes the ups user interface itself and discusses its implementaion, which may be of interest to anyone writing a program with an interface based on menus and editable fields. There is also a discussion of some of the problems that will be encountered by anyone trying to write a new debugger to run in an existing environment.     

Specification-led design for interface simulation. Collecting use-data, interactive help, writing manuals, analysis, comparing alternative designs, etc.

This paper shows how to combine a substantial part of the product development cycle of interactive devices into a single, coordinated approach. Much can be derived automatically from a suitable specification of the interactive device. Normal product development has a device specified and built, then has its manuals written, then it is used and tested. At this late stage design problems may be identified, but it is now too late: usability studies become academic in so far as the particular product is concerned, since it is already effectively in production. It would be better if the testing and manual writing could rapidly be obtained from the initial specification, before any investment has been made in fabrication. This paper offers a design approach that achieves this, and it shows how the various views of the design can be used to help improve each other; for instance, the automatically generated user manual can be fed back to suggest improvements in the design. A microwave cooker is used as a real example. This paper provides full and unabridged details of everything it discusses by usingMathematica as a rapid prototyping environment. Any similar device can be analysed in the same way, directly from the paper (which is available on the World Wide Web).