Integrating adaptation rules for people with special needs in model-based UI development process

The adaptation of user interfaces for people with special needs is a promising approach in order to enable their access to digital services. Model-based user interfaces provide a useful approach for this purpose since they allow tailoring final user interfaces with a high degree of flexibility. This paper describes a system called Adaptation Integration System aimed at providing Cameleon Reference Framework model-based tools with a mechanism to integrate adaptation rules in the development process. Thus, more accessible user-tailored interfaces can be automatically generated. The services provided by the system can be applied at both design time and runtime. At design time, a user interface can be tailored at any abstraction level in the development process. At runtime, changes in the context of use trigger the adaptation process. Adaptation rules are stored in a repository tagged with meta-information useful for the adaptation process, such as the granularity of the adaptations and the abstraction level. As case studies, two applications have been developed using the services provided by the system. One of them exploits the benefits at design time, whereas the other application is devoted to describe the adaptation process at runtime. The results obtained in these two scenarios demonstrate the viability and potential of the adaption integration system since even inexperienced designers may efficiently produce accessible user interfaces.     

A formal model for plastic human computer interfaces

The considerable and significant progress achieved in the design and development of new interaction devices between man and machine has enabled the emergence of various powerful and efficient input and/or output devices. Each of these new devices brings specific interaction modes.With the emergence of these devices, new interaction techniques and modes arise and new interaction capabilities are offered. New user interfaces need to be designed or former ones need to evolve. The design of so called plastic user interfaces contributes to handling such evolutions. The key requirement for the design of such a user interface is that the new obtained user interface shall be adapted to the application and have, at least, the same behavior as the previous (adapted) one. This paper proposes to address the problem of user interface evolution due to the introduction of new interaction devices and/or new interaction modes. More, precisely, we are interested by the study of the design process of a user interface resulting from the evolution of a former user interface due to the introduction of new devices and/or new interaction capabilities. We consider that interface behaviors are described by labelled transition systems and comparison between user interfaces is handled by an extended definition of the bi-simulation relationship to compare user interface behaviors when interaction modes are replaced by new ones.     

A Model Transformation Approach for Automatic Composition of COTS User Interfaces in Web-Based Information Systems

Globalization of the information and the Knowledge Society requires the modernization of Web-based Information Systems (WIS) into evolutive and adaptable user interfaces. Today, WIS user interfaces are built following traditional development paradigms. This article is inspired on a Model-Driven Development (MDD) perspective to produce runtime automatic composition of user interfaces from model and metamodel representations of widgets-type COTS interface components architectures and model transformation.     

Augmented reality agents for user interface adaptation

Most augmented reality (AR) applications are primarily concerned with letting a user browse a 3D virtual world registered with the real world. More advanced AR interfaces let the user interact with the mixed environment, but the virtual part is typically rather finite and deterministic. In contrast, autonomous behavior is often desirable in ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp), which requires the computers embedded into the environment to adapt to context and situation without explicit user intervention. We present an AR framework that is enhanced by typical Ubicomp features by dynamically and proactively exploiting previously unknown applications and hardware devices, and adapting the appearance of the user interface to persistently stored and accumulated user preferences. Our framework explores proactive computing, multi‐user interface adaptation, and user interface migration. We employ mobile and autonomous agents embodied by real and virtual objects as an interface and interaction metaphor, where agent bodies are able to opportunistically migrate between multiple AR applications and computing platforms to best match the needs of the current application context. We present two pilot applications to illustrate design concepts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

User-centered approach to adaptive interfaces

Both adaptive and adaptable user interfaces are intended to fit the needs of individual users and their tasks better. A problem with these interfaces is that users must have and use additional knowledge, either to understand the automatic, system-driven adaptations or to adapt the interface on their own. Beyond these two extreme approaches, an automatically self-adapting system and a user manually adapting the system, the approach introduced in this paper strives for a third option, in which users are able to tell the system how to adapt itself. Accordingly, methods include adaptive adaptation (i.e. modifying the adaptation strategies) and implicit adaptation (i.e. changing the underlying models). The applicability of these findings is illustrated in the context of an adaptive action prompting environment.     

eLearniXML: Towards a model-based approach for the development of e-Learning systems considering quality

With the evolution of technology, and especially of the Internet, a growing interest has appeared for on-line education. The many advantages of e-Learning have made this teaching philosophy an ideal partner for teachers, either as a complement to regular education or as a substitute for traditional education. The development of an e-Learning system poses extra challenges for software developers, since there are other facets, such as contents and user tracking, not usually considered in software development methodologies. In this paper eLearniXML approach to the development of e-Learning systems is presented. This approach enriches the development of e-Learning systems method proposed in ADDIE with the model-based development of user interfaces and software quality consideration. By doing so, we aim at the development of, what we have named, a Model-Based Instructional Development Environment (MB-ISDE), to include e-Learning development in the current trends of model-based software development.     

There is more to monitoring a nuclear power plant than meets the eye

A fundamental challenge in studying cognitive systems in context is how to move from the specific work setting studied to a more general understanding of distributed cognitive work and how to support it. We present a series of cognitive field studies that illustrate one response to this challenge. Our focus was on how nuclear power plant (NPP) operators monitor plant state during normal operating conditions. We studied operators at two NPPs with different control room interfaces. We identified strong consistencies with respect to factors that made monitoring difficult and the strategies that operators have developed to facilitate monitoring. We found that what makes monitoring difficult is not the need to identify subtle abnormal indications against a quiescent background, but rather the need to identify and pursue relevant findings against a noisy background. Operators devised proactive strategies to make important information more salient or reduce meaningless change, create new information, and off-load some cognitive processing onto the interface. These findings emphasize the active problem-solving nature of monitoring, and highlight the use of strategies for knowledge-driven monitoring and the proactive adaptation of the interface to support monitoring. Potential applications of this research include control room design for process control and alarm systems and user interfaces for complex systems.     

To model objects in information systems and user interfaces: implications for object-oriented methods

Abstract. A general way of contrasting the object-oriented to the function-oriented approach, called 'object-order' and 'function-order', is proposed in this paper. In addition, when modelling information systems, there is a third principle of ordering, 'subject-order'. Object and function-order are used to define the two approaches to modelling information systems and in human-computer interaction, in ways that are compatible to the corresponding distinction in programming. The conditions for selecting either of the two approaches are, however, not discussed here.
By means of an object-ordered method, e.g. Jackson System Development (JSD), an object-ordered model is produced, and the user interface that can be derived from the model is object-ordered too. However, other guidelines in JSD support subject-order. A function-ordered interface can be derived from the subject-ordered model. A computer system designed by means of an object-organized method may therefore obtain an interface that is partially object-ordered and partially function-ordered. Other object-oriented methods give guidelines for designing function-oriented interfaces without relating these guidelines to the model.
The system designer may benefit from having three principles of ordering when modelling a system. However, a user may be confused by an interface that sometimes gives preference to objects, sometimes to functions.     

Context-driven interaction in immersive virtual environments

There are many interaction tasks a user may wish to accomplish in an immersive virtual environment. A careful examination of these tasks reveals that they are often performed under different contexts. For each task and context, specialized interaction techniques can be developed. We present the context-driven interaction model: a design pattern that represents contextual information as a first-class, quantifiable component within a user interface and supports the development of context-sensitive applications by decoupling context recognition, context representation, and interaction technique development. As a primary contribution, this model provides an enumeration of important representations of contextual information gathered from across the literature and describes how these representations can effect the selection of an appropriate interaction technique. We also identify how several popular 3D interaction techniques adhere to this design pattern and describe how the pattern itself can lead to a more focused development of effective interfaces. We have constructed a formalized programming toolkit and runtime system that serves as a reference implementation of the context-driven model and a discussion is provided explaining how the toolkit can be used to implement a collection of representative 3D interaction interfaces.     

基于PCTBTA任务模型的用户界面开发方法

为了适应普适计算环境中用户、设备、使用环境和开发平台的多样性,基于模型的方法被应用于用户界面开发过程中,试图在抽象层次上描述界面,通过模型转换,使其适用于不同的平台.然而,由于目前基于模型的用户界面开发方法（model-based user interface development,简称MBUID）中所采用任务模型的局限性,致使生成的界面难以满足动态环境下用户的可用性需求.提出一种基于任务模型的用户界面开发框架,旨在建模和生成有效、高效、令用户满意的用户界面.在可用性方面,为了准确描述普适计算环境中用户任务,提出一种基于感知控制理论的任务分析方法（perceptual-control-theory-based task analysis,简称PCTBTA）,将使用上下文信息引入到任务分析过程中,并且在较高的抽象层次上反映交互的内容,给可用性设计提供任务空间;在技术方面,为PCTBTA任务模型向界面模型的转换提供技术支持.最后,通过实例说明所提出方法的可行性,并通过与其他方法在可用性和性能方面的比较,表明该方法的有效性.     

Neuro-cognitively inspired haptic user interfaces

Haptic systems and devices are a recent addition to multimodal systems. These devices have widespread applications such as surgical simulations, medical and procedural training, scientific visualizations, assistive and rehabilitative devices for individuals who have physical or neurological impediments and assistive devices for individuals who are blind. While the potential of haptics in natural human machine interaction is undisputable, the realization of such means is still a long way ahead. There are considerable research challenges to development of natural haptic interfaces. The study of human tactile abilities is a recent endeavor and many of the available systems still do not incorporate the domain knowledge of psychophysics, biomechanics and neurological elements of haptic perception. Development of smart and effective haptic interfaces and devices requires extensive studies that link perceptual phenomena with measurable parameters and incorporation of such domain knowledge in the engineering of haptic interfaces. This paper presents design, development and usability testing of a neuro-cognitively inspired haptic user interface for individuals who are blind. The proposed system design is inspired by neuro-cognitive basis of haptic perception and incorporates the computational aspects and requirements of multimodal information processing system. Usability testing of the system suggests that a biologically inspired haptic user interfaces may form a powerful paradigm for haptic user interface design.

Toward the adaptation of component‐based architectures by model transformation: behind smart user interfaces

Graphical user interfaces are not always developed for remaining static. There are GUIs with the need of implementing some variability mechanisms. Component‐based GUIs are an ideal target for incorporating this kind of operations, because they can adapt their functionality at run‐time when their structure is updated by adding or removing components or by modifying the relationships between them. Mashup user interfaces are a good example of this type of GUI, and they allow to combine services through the assembly of graphical components. We intend to adapt component‐based user interfaces for obtaining smart user interfaces. With this goal, our proposal attempts to adapt abstract component‐based architectures by using model transformation. Our aim is to generate at run‐time a dynamic model transformation, because the rules describing their behavior are not pre‐set but are selected from a repository depending on the context. The proposal describes an adaptation schema based on model transformation providing a solution to this dynamic transformation. Context information is processed to select at run‐time a rule subset from a repository. Selected rules are used to generate, through a higher‐order transformation, the dynamic model transformation. This approach has been tested through a case study which applies different repositories to the same architecture and context. Moreover, a web tool has been developed for validation and demonstration of its applicability. The novelty of our proposal arises from the adaptation schema that creates a non pre‐set transformation, which enables the dynamic adaptation of component‐based architectures. Copyright © 2014 Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于MVC模式的Web用户界面建模

分析了企业信息系统的Web用户界面开发特性,研究了当前主流前端框架的MVC(模型-视图-控制器)设计模式应用,针对Web前端开发需求及最佳实践方法,提出了一种符合MVC用户界面开发最佳实践的组件化Web用户界面建模方法.设计一套抽象和描述Web用户界面组件的UML(统一建模语言)概要文件,从界面数据模型、界面组件模型到界面交互模型等3个方面完成Web用户界面建模.以一个装修行业定制型ERP(企业资源计划)系统为例,通过用户界面建模实践,验证了本建模方法的可行性、易用性和有效性.     

Embarking on Spoken-Language NL Interface Design

Natural language (NL) user interfaces are growing in popularity. Unfortunately, the complexity of NL interaction makes these interfaces difficult to design. For NL interfaces to become successful, universal tools are needed to help support the NL design process. What work practice should these tools explicitly support? Interviews with NL designers and our own experiments have identified a specific work practice that designers should consider as they begin to incorporate NL into user interface designs. The work practice study highlights the value of using Wizard of Oz prototyping in NL design. We describe a tool that we have built, called SUEDE, to explicitly support the first stage of NL design for spoken-language user interfaces. Our tools and tools like it will help make NL in human-computer interaction (HCI) more commonplace.     

Fourier Elimination for Compiling Constraint Hierarchies

Linear equality and inequality constraints arise naturally in specifying many aspects of user interfaces, such as requiring that one window be to the left of another, requiring that a pane occupy the leftmost 1/3 of a window, or preferring that an object be contained within a rectangle if possible. For interactive use, we need to solve similar constraint satisfaction problems repeatedly for each screen refresh, with each successive problem differing from the previous one only in the position of an input device and the previous state of the system. We present an algorithm for solving such systems of constraints using projection. The solution is compiled into very efficient, constraint-free code, which is parameterized by the new inputs. Producing straight-line, constraint-free code of this sort is important in a number of applications: for example, to provide predictable performance in real-time systems, to allow companies to ship products without including a runtime constraint solver, to compile Java applets that can be downloaded and run remotely (again without having to include a runtime solver), or for applications where runtime efficiency is particularly important. Even for less time-critical user interface applications, the smooth performance of the resulting code is more pleasing than that of code produced using other current techniques.     

Design and evaluation of an adaptive icon toolbar

As information systems become increasingly important in many different domains, the potential to adapt them to individual users and their needs also becomes more important. Adaptive user interfaces offer many possible ways to adjust displays and improve procedures for a user's individual patterns of work. This paper describes an attempt to design an adaptive user interface in a computer environment familiar to many users. According to one classification of adaptive user interfaces, the adaptive bar described in this paper would be classified as a user-controlled self-adaptation system.At the user's convenience, the adaptive bar offers suggestions for adding or removing command icons, based on the frequency and probability of specific commands. It also implements these changes once the user has agreed to them. Beyond the adaptive bar, the general behavior of the whole user interface does not change, thereby allowing the user to maintain a clear general model of the system. This paper describes the decision-making algorithm implemented in the bar. It also describes the bar's self-adaptive behavior of displaying the frequency of each icon's use through the icon's size. Finally, we present some encouraging preliminary results of evaluations by users.     

Evolutionary design of user interfaces for workflow information systems

In this paper we argue that user interface design should evolve from iterative to evolutionary in order to support the user interface development life cycle in a more flexible way. Evolutionary design consists of taking any input that informs to the lifecycle at any level of abstraction and its propagation through inferior and superior levels (vertical engineering) as well as the same level (horizontal engineering). This lifecycle is particularly appropriate when requirements are incomplete, partially unknown or to be discovered progressively. We exemplify this lifecycle by a methodology for developing user interfaces of workflow information systems. The methodology involves several models (i.e., task, process, workflow, domain, context of use) and steps. The methodology applies model-driven engineering to derive concrete user interfaces from a workflow model imported into a workflow management system in order to run the workflow. Instead of completing each model step by step, any model element is either derived from early requirements or collected in the appropriate model before being propagated in the subsequent steps. When more requirements are elicited, any new element is added at the appropriate level, consolidated with the already existing elements, and propagated to the subsequent levels. A workflow editor has been developed to support the methodology.     

Understanding novelty: how task structure and tool familiarity moderate performance

Consumers and corporate end users are regularly faced with the challenge of adapting to new technology tools and their user interfaces. Understanding the role of user experience in using these new interfaces is an important aspect of assessing and planning for how new innovations are received. Through a controlled laboratory experiment in the information retrieval domain, we find that the effect of task (web search) familiarity on performance depends on the task structure (open-ended versus closed-ended) and the degree of tool familiarity (a traditional textual list versus a novel graphical interface for presenting web search results). Our results show that task experience has a positive effect on performance when the task structure is closed-ended and the interface is familiar, and a negative effect when the task structure is open-ended and the interface is unfamiliar. This study not only adds to the literature on user experience in the context of IT use, but also has practical implications for the testing and adoption of new technologies, indicating that novices may be better, or at least an important group, for testing truly novel tools and their interfaces.