Framework and authoring tool for an extension of the UIML language

This paper presents a framework for the design of User Interfaces (UIs). By applying model transformations, the framework allows different UIs to be generated for different computing platforms. The tool presented in this work helps designers to build an abstract user interface which is later transformed into a concrete user interface by means of transformation techniques based on graph grammars. These techniques can be used to generate implementation code for several UI platforms including desktop applications, dynamic websites and mobile applications. The generated user interfaces are integrated with a multi-tier application by referencing external services and communicating with the application core over Web Service protocols. Our tool also allows the concrete interfaces to be enhanced before generating the final UI. The approach uses an adaptation of UIML (User Interface Markup Language). The adaptation focuses on defining a data model and a services model, and it also introduces a navigation model that allows data communication from one UI to another. The obtained UIs together with Web Services can conform complete applications instead of just being prototypes.     

Advance human–machine interface automatic evaluation

The need for accessibility evaluation tools is motivated by several endogenous and exogenous reasons coming from the end user (the designer and the developer) and companies releasing information systems. Existing evaluation tools mainly concentrate on examining the code of Web pages: Web pages more and more frequently contain non-HTML parts that entirely escape from being treated by existing techniques. This is the case of the advanced human–machine interface (AHMI), a piece of software programmed in C/C++, used for controlling the advanced flight management system in the aircraft cockpit. Studying this new user interface (UI) requires a structured approach to evaluate and validate AHMI designs. The goal in this work is to develop an evaluation tool to automate the process of evaluating the AHMI. The method addresses: support of multiple bases of guidelines (accessibility or usability or both) on-demand (partial or total evaluation), with different levels of details (a presentation for developers and for those responsible for certifying accessibility). The method goes a step toward the automatic evaluation of UI containing non-HTML parts.     

基于WinCE用户界面可订制技术的实现

使用事件驱动模型实现了一套适用于WinCE设备的高度可定制用户界面方案,用于简化用户界面的设计过程.该方案使得程序可执行代码与用户界面完全分离,进而使得独立于执行代码之外的功能定制成为可能,成套的软件界面更易于保持一致的风格,软件研发也会大幅加速.     

Pattern‐based GUI testing: Bridging the gap between design and quality assurance

Software systems with a graphical user interface (GUI) front end are typically designed using user interface (UI) Patterns, which describe generic solutions (with multiple possible implementations) for recurrent GUI design problems. However, existing testing techniques do not take advantage of this fact to test GUIs more efficiently. In this paper, we present a new pattern‐based GUI testing (PBGT) approach that formalizes the notion of UI Test Patterns, which are generic test strategies to test UI patterns over their different implementations. The PBGT approach is evaluated via 2 case studies. The first study involves 2 fielded Web application subjects; findings show that PBGT is both practical and useful, as testing teams were able to find real bugs in a reasonable time interval. The second study allows deeper analysis by studying software subjects seeded with artificial faults; the findings show that PBGT is more effective than a manual model‐based test case generation approach.     

Lightful user interaction on smart wearables

Smart wearables are body-worn small devices that require novel user interaction due to its compactness and wearability. Current UI/UX of smart wearables is rooted in a smartphone-like UI/UX that is inadequate in many cases constrained by such small form factors. To overcome these limitations, research efforts are invested for augmenting wearable devices with various sensors and improving efficiency of existing input modalities through careful orchestration. In this paper, we propose a new concept called lightful user interaction exploiting a readily available ambient light sensor as a novel and alternative user interface for smart wearables. We design and model lightful user interaction based on typical usages of representative smart wearables. Then, we demonstrate the proposed lightful user interaction through three implemented applications such as PIN entry, morse code, and control indicator, respectively. At the end, we evaluate the concept and applications in terms of occluded display area, input expressivity and lightweight implementation aspects to make a case for a promising novel and alternative UI for smart wearables.     

软件界面动态生成及可视化调整的设计与实现

用户界面(UI)是用户直接与软件进行交互的部分,是一个软件是否具有竞争优势的一个重要条件,备受程序员的关注和重视。文中探讨了如何由用户在使用过程中根据需要配置个性化界面的方法。并且通过一个具体项目的实践,提出了一个动态实现软件界面及可视化调整的解决方案,并对其实现过程中的控件动态生成、事件动态绑定、控件拖动等的一些技术细节进行了较详尽的描述。     

基于XML的用户界面管理

为了使软件用户界面具有良好的扩展性与定制能力，提出包括界面生成、界面配置、界面定制和界面控制等多方面内容的用户界面管理概念，并结合XML技术开发出相应的界面管理系统．应用该系统不仅可使软件的开发更加简单和易于维护，还可使最终用户能够根据需要对界面进行定制．     

Rethinking the path to usability: how to design what users really want

As the software market grows more competitive, companies with difficult-to-use products face higher customer support costs as they attempt to rework user interfaces to fix usability problems. It is time that software designers tried reversing the direction - get user requirements, design the user interaction with the product's features, and then code the features - to produce software from the user's perspective and logic.     

一种支持访问控制的用户界面设计模型*

针对传统界面设计方法不能很好地支持多用户访问控制建模的缺点,提出一个面向多用户访问控制的用户界面ACUI（access control user interface）模型。该模型在传统界面设计模型的基础上,引入了RBAC（role based access control）机制,通过对用户模型中的角色及用例进行形式化分析,并根据内部模型中描述的界面构成元素及其交互关系,在用户界面模型中给出了针对不同角色的界面展示规则和界面布局树,最终实现了界面代码的自动生成。实验证明,该模型能很好地指导多用户权限访问控制     

Implementing a user interface management system for existing applications using an object-oriented database tool

Numerous engineering application systems have been developed over the past twenty years, and many of these applications will continue to be used for many years to come. Examples of such applications include CAD Systems, finite-element analysis packages and inspection systems. Because many of these applications were developed before graphical workstations became available, they often have simple command-line user interfaces. Thus, there is a need for a graphical user interface management system (UIMS) that can be used to build point-and-click style interfaces for these existing engineering applications. In this paper we describe such a UIMS, and discuss its implementation using an object-oriented database tool. This UIMS allows users to create and modify user interfaces by editing graphical representations of the interfaces, thus eliminating the need to write code to build or modify an interface. The UIMS is implemented using an object-oriented database tool to take advantage of the data manipulation and storage management capabilities it provides. This approach reduces both the quantity and complexity of the code needed to implement the UIMS. It also allowed the UIMS to be implemented in a minimal amount of time.     

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.     

可编程保护测控功能通用性设计与实现

介绍了保护测控装置中可编程保护测控功能的概念、应用场景及实现要求,提出适用于不同软硬件平台的可编程功能通用化设计方案.在分析可编程功能与保护测控装置标准或通用功能之间的数据接口及其描述方法的基础上阐述了编程语言的设计以及用户程序转换为中间代码和目标代码的实现方法,讨论了装置虚拟机通过构造逻辑堆栈高效地执行用户程序的过程,并提出了配套图形化编程工具软件的实现思路.该方案为保护测控装置提供了灵活的通用化二次可编程接口.     

oDect: an RFID‐based object detection API to support applications development on mobile devices

The RFID technology is becoming ever more popular in the development of ubiquitous computing applications. A full exploitation of the RFID potential requires the study and implementation of human–computer interaction (HCI) modalities to be able to support wide usability by the target audience. This implies the need for programming methodologies specifically dedicated to support the easy and efficient prototyping of applications to have feedback from early tests with users. On the basis of our field‐working experience, we have designed oDect, a high‐level language and platform‐independent application programming interface (API), ad hoc designed to meet the needs of typical applications for mobile devices (smart phones and PDAs). oDect aims at allowing application developers to create their prototypes focusing on the needs of the final users, without having to care about the low‐level software that interacts with the RFID hardware. Further, in an end‐user developing (EUD) approach, oDect provides specific support for the application end‐user herself to cope with typical problems of RFID applications in detecting objects. We describe in detail the features of the API and discuss the findings of a test with four programmers, where we analyse and evaluate the use of the API in four sample applications. We also present results of an end‐user test, which investigated strengths and weaknesses of the territorial agenda (TA) concept. The TA is an RFID‐based citizen guide that aids—through time‐ and location‐based reminders—users in their daily activities in a city. The TA directly exploits EUD features of oDect, in particular concerning the possibility of linking detected objects with custom actions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abmash: mashing up legacy Web applications by automated imitation of human actions

Many business Web‐based applications do not offer APIs to enable other applications to access their data and functions in a programmatic manner. This makes their composition difficult (for instance to synchronize data between two applications). To address this challenge, this paper presents Abmash, an approach to facilitate the integration of such legacy Web applications by automatically imitating human interactions with them. By automatically interacting with the GUI of Web applications, the system supports all forms of integrations including bidirectional interactions and is able to interact with AJAX‐based applications. Furthermore, the integration programs are easy to write because they deal with end‐user, visual UI elements. The integration code is simple enough to be called a ‘mash‐up’. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effective test case selection for component customization and its application to Enterprise JavaBeans

Component users need to customize components they obtain from providers, because providers usually develop components for general use. Although the customization is accomplished by modifying the interface of a component, faults from customization appear when the implementation part of a component and the interfaces interact. The implementation part is a black‐box, whose source code is not available to a component user, while the interface is a white‐box, whose source code is available for customization. Therefore, customization faults should be tested using both the black‐box part and the white‐box part of a component. This paper proposes a new technique to test customization faults using software fault injection and mutation testing, and the technique is tailored to Enterprise JavaBeans. Test cases are selected by injecting faults not into the entire interface but into specific parts of the component's interface. The specific parts that are chosen control the effectiveness of the test cases. An empirical study to evaluate the technique is reported. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

支持多设备交互的分层界面设计模型

针对多设备环境下人机交互的特性，提出了一种支持代码自动生成的界面设计方法。该方法建立了以人机交互为中心的分层界面设计模型，支持不同设备平台上的代码生成，能够为模型驱动的软件开发提供有力的支持。     

一种柔性Web展现框架模型

在Web2．0时代,越来越多的网站采用了动态脚本的方式和用户进行交互,大量客户端脚本的应用,造成了代码的可适应性、可维护性、可扩展性较差,无法兼容各种主流浏览器,页面之间的跳转仍然较多,资源的加载没有规则等问题,影响了应用性能和用户体验．提出了一种柔性Web展现框架模型FWF,构造了符合AJAX＋MVC模式的框架模型,定义了组件模型并通过策略适配器的驱动及事件机制,较好解决了软件适应性问题;对UI组件进行面向对象的封装,实现模型（Model）、视图（Ⅵew）和控制（Controller）的合理分层,并通过内置的资源加载规则,缩短资源加载时间,从而提升用户应用体验,通过OSGI框架的模块扩展机制实现了Web组件的可扩展．此外,通过原型实例实验证明了框架的柔性和性能．