Specifying user interfaces for runtime modal independent migration

Luyten, Kris; Van Laerhoven, Tom; Coninx, Karin; Van Reeth, Frank

Kris Luyten, Tom Van Laerhoven, Karin Coninx, & Frank Van Reeth, Specifying user interfaces for runtime modal independent migration, in Christophe Kolski & Jean Vanderdonckt (eds.), Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces III, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces, May, 15-17, 2002, Valenciennes, France,283-294 (Kluwer 2002). PDF

Abstract:

The usage of computing systems has evolved dramatically over the last years. Starting from a low level procedural usage, in which a process for executing one or several tasks is carried out, computers now tend to be used in a problem oriented way. Future computer usage will be more centered around particular services, and will not be focused on platforms or applications. These services should be independent of the technology used to interact with them. In this paper an approach will be presented which provides a uniform interface to such services, with- out any dependence on modality, platform or programming language. Through the usage of general user interface descriptions, presented in XML, and converted using XSLT, a uniform framework is presented for runtime migration of user interfaces. As a consequence, future services will become easily extensible for all kinds of devices and modalities. An implementation serving as a proof of concept, a runtime conversion of a joystick in a 3D virtual environment into a 2D dialog-based user interface, is developed.