User interface

modeling

User interface modeling is a development technique used by computer application

programmers. Today's user interfaces (UIs) are complex software components, which play an
essential role in the usability of an application. The development of UIs requires therefore, not
only guidelines and best practice reports, but also a development process including the
elaboration of visual models and a standardized notation for this visualization.

The term user interface modeling is mostly used in an information technology context. A user
interface model is a representation of how the end user(s) interact with a computer program or
another device and also how the system responds. The modeling task is then to show all the
"directly experienced aspects of a thing or device" [Trætteberg2002].

Modeling user interfaces is a well-established discipline in its own right. For example, modeling
techniques can describe interaction objects, tasks, and lower-level dialogs in user interfaces.
Using models as part of user interface development can help capture user requirements, avoid
premature commitment to specific layouts and widgets, and make the relationships between an
interface’s different parts and their roles explicit. [SilvaPaton2003].

Languages

MARIA
…
MARIA XML (Model-based lAnguage foR Interactive Applications) is a universal, declarative,
multiple abstraction level, XML-based user interface markup language for modelling interactive
applications in ubiquitous environments.

UML
…
Some aspects of user interface modeling can be realized using UML. However, the language is
not mainly intended for this kind of modeling, which may render the models somewhat
synthetic.

UMLi …
UMLi is an extension of UML, and adds support for representation commonly occurring in user
interfaces.

Because application models in UML describe few aspects of user interfaces, and because the
model-based user interface development environments (MB-UIDE) lack ability for modeling
applications, the University of Manchester started the research project UMLi in 1998. UMLi aims
to address this problem of designing and implementing user interfaces using a combination of
UML and MB-UIDE.

UsiXML
…
UsiXML (USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language) is an XML-based specification language
for user interface design. It supports the description of UI for multiple contexts of use such as
Character User Interfaces (CUIs), Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), Auditory User Interfaces, and
Multimodal User Interfaces.

DiaMODL
…
DiaMODL combines a dataflow-oriented language (Pisa interactor abstraction) with UML
Statecharts which has focus on behavior. It is capable of modeling the dataflow as well as the
behavior of interaction objects. It may be used for documenting the function and structure of
concrete user interfaces.

Himalia
…
Himalia combines the Hypermedia Models with the control/composite paradigm. It is a full user
interface language, it may be used for specifying but also for running it, because of this the
designer tool can categorized as a guilder.[1] ([Link]

Model types

The different aspects of a user interface requires different model types. Some of the models
that may be considered for UI-modeling are:

Domain model, including data model (defines the objects that a user can view, access and
manipulate through the user interface)

Navigation model, defines how the objects that a user view could be navigated through the
user interface

Task model. (describes the tasks an end user performs and dictates what interaction
capabilities must be designed)

User model (represents the different characteristics of end users and the roles they are
playing within the organization)

Platform model (used to model the physical devices that are intended to host the application
and how they interact with each other)

Dialogue model (how users can interact with the objects presentation (as push buttons,
commands, etc.), with interaction media (as voice input, touch screen, etc.) and the reactions
that the user interface communicates via these objects)

Presentation model (application appearance, representation of the visual, haptic and auditory
elements that the user interface offers to its users)

Application model (commands and data the application provides)

UML can be used for several of the models mentioned above with varying degree of success, but
it lacks support for user modeling, platform modeling and presentation model.

Approaches

There exist several approaches to modeling a user interface.

Usage-centered design
…
 …
In usage-centered design, the modeling task is to show how the actual presentation of a planned
system and how the user interaction is supposed to happen. This is probably the most praised
approach, and it has been used successfully on a variety of small and large-scale projects. Its
strengths are in complex problems.

Alternative approaches to model-based UIs

The known issues of model-based approaches include information restatement and lack of
mechanisms to effectively to solve cross-cutting concerns [Cerny2013]. Model-based solutions
can work well on their own, but integration with alternative approaches brings complexity in
development and maintenance efforts.

Code-inspection based …
These approaches are based on existing general purpose language (GPL) code bases
[Cerny2012]. They inspect the code through meta-programming and assemble a structural
model that is transformed to the UI. This approach addresses information restatement. These
approaches does not fit to adaptive and context-aware UIs.

Generative programming
…
These approaches connect domain methods with GPL [Generative programming]. Cross-cutting
concerns are addressed at compile-time, which does not directly accommodate future adaptive
UIs needing runtime information.

Aspect-based UIs
…
Aspect-based solution suggested by [Cerny2013][Cerny2013a][AspectFaces] integrates
advantages of code-inspection based and generative programming approaches. It inspects
existing code and applies aspect oriented methods to address cross-cutting concerns. It works
at runtime, reduces information restatement and at the same time separates UI concerns which
allows to reuse each independent of others. In the study at [Cerny2013] authors reduce UI code
by 32% through aspect-based UI approach applied to a production system. Main advantages are
templating for adjusting the presentation, separate definitions of concerns and mostly generic
transformation rules applicable across various data.
Content models
…
Models of this kind show the contents of a user interface and its different components.
Aesthetics and behavior details are not included in this kind of model as it is a form of usage-
centered design model.

See also

Cognitive ergonomics

References

[Paternò 2005] – F Paternò, Model-based tools for pervasive usability, Interacting with
Computers 17 (3), 291-315 ([Link]

[Trætteberg2002] – H. Trætteberg, Model-based User Interface Design, Doctoral thesis,

Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2002 ([Link]
h/thesis)

[SilvaPaton2003] – P. Pinheiro da Silva, N. W. Paton, User Interface Modeling in UMLi, Stanford

University / University of Manchester, 2003

[Markopoulos1997] – P. Markopoulos, A compositional model for the formal specification of

user interface software, Doctoral thesis, Queen Mary and Westfield College University of
London, 1997

[Trevisan2003] – D. Trevisan, J. Vanderdonck, B. Macq, Model-Based Approach and

Augmented Reality Systems, Université catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium, 2003

[wwwUMLi] – The Unified Modeling Language for Interactive Applications ([Link]

u/umli)

[Cerny2013] – Černý, T. - Čemus, K. - Donahoo, M.J. - Song, M.J.: Aspect-driven, Data-reflective

and Context-aware User Interfaces Design (page 53). In: ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing
Review [online ([Link] , 2013, vol. 13,
no. 4, p. 53-65, ISSN 1559-6915 ([Link]
15) .

[Cerny2013a] – Černý, T. - Donahoo, M.J. - Song, E.: Towards Effective Adaptive User
Interfaces Design ([Link] , Proceedings of the 2013
 Research in Applied Computation Symposium (RACS 2013), Montreal: ACM, 2013, ISBN 978-1-
4503-2348-2.

[AspectFaces] – AspectFaces ([Link]

[Cerny2012] – T. Cerny and E. Song. Model-driven Rich Form Generation ([Link]

[Link]/scholar?cluster=12280381045153079495&hl=en) . Information: An International
Interdisciplinary Journal, 15(7, SI):2695--2714, JUL 2012.

[Generative programming] – Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ulrich W. Eisenecker. 2000. Generative

Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications ([Link]
mming-Methods-Tools-Applications/dp/0201309777) . ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publ.
Co., New York, NY, USA.

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