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Abstract. Most existing graphical user interfaces are usually designed for a fixed context of use, thus making them rather difficult to modify for other contexts of use, such as for other users, other platforms, and other environments. This paper addresses this problem by introducing a new visual design method for graphical users interfaces referred to as “visual design by (de)composition”. In this method, any individual or composite component of a graphical user interface is submitted to a series of operations for composing a new interface from existing components and for decomposing an existing one into smaller pieces that can be used in turn for another interface. For this purpose, any component of a user interface is described by specifications that are consistently written in a user interface description language that remains hidden to the designers ’ eyes. We first define the composition and decomposition operations and individually exemplify them on some small examples. We then demonstrate how they can be used to visually design new interfaces for a real-world case study where variations of the context of use induce frequent recomposition of user interfaces. Finally, we describe how the operations are implemented in a dedicated interface builder supporting the aforementioned method. 1

Multi-modality is a domain which is study since several years in HCI area. In this paper, we approach this domain under a new point of view, those of the e-Marketing, and so in an industrial framework. Thus, we investigate real issues of E-Marketing with well-known technical in HCI. The multi-modal notion can be compared to the multichannel one used in e-Marketing. That’s why a part of our work is dedicated to define and describe what is behind the terms of multi-modal and multi-channel in the E-Marketing area. Our collaboration with the Cité Numérique, a subsidiary of the 3 Suisses International Company, a large group of Direct Marketing, carries out us to consider real issues. This collaboration also led us to study concrete scenario in real situations, at large scale. 1

Abstract. Specifying user interfaces consists in a fundamental activity in the user interface development life cycle as it informs the subsequent steps. Good quality specifications could lead to a user interface that satisfies the user’s needs. The user interface development life cycle typically involves multiple actors possessing all their own particular inputs of user interface artifacts expressed with their own formats, thus posing new constraints for integrating them into comprehensive and consistent specifications of a future user interface. This paper introduces a design technique where these actors can introduce their artifacts by sketching them in their respective input format so as to integrate them into one or multiple output formats. Each artifact can be introduced in a particular level of fidelity (ranging from low to high) and switched to an adjacent level of fidelity after appropriate refining. Refined artifacts are then captured in appropriate models stored in a model repository. In this way, coevolutionary design of user interfaces is introduced, defined, and supported by a collaborative design tool allowing multiple inputs and multiple outputs. This design paradigm is exemplified on a case study and has been tested in an empirical study revealing how designers appreciate it.

In ubiquitous computing, interactive applications are shipped with different variations of its user interface depending on the constraints imposed by the context in which they are running, such as the user, the computing platform and environment. A multi-presentation user interface is composed of a series of interconnected user interfaces for the same task to be carried out in different contexts of use. When access to software applications must be guaranteed in more than one context of use, it is necessary to automatically adapt the interface in order to preserve their usability when context switching occurs, for instance, a switch from a desktop to a pocket computer. To achieve this goal, this paper proposes a model and a visualization technique to express and manipulate the plasticity domains of a multipresentation user interface. The plasticity domain denotes the set

WOLD (Wizard fOr Leveraging the Development of multi-platform user interfaces) helps designers to produce running user interfaces to data bases of information systems simultaneously for multiple computing platforms. This software consists of a wizard application guiding designers step by step according to a mixedinitiative approach of production rules structured in a decision tree for choosing appropriate design options covering user interfaces to be produced. The main goal of this software is to speed up the development life cycle according to a transformational approach, spiral life cycle, derivation of user interfaces from data bases structure and queries, intelligent layout derived from data base structure and query. User interfaces are structured and described according to characteristics that remain independent of computing platforms.

The design of user interfaces is a step which takes a long time. The automatic generation of these interfaces induces shorter durations. With this automatic generation, the UIDLs have appeared. They allow specifying an interface using a Description Language. A step which also takes a long time is the redesigning of the user interface to take into accounts users remarks. We propose to use the operators of the tree algebra with a UIDL as UsiXML which is structured as a tree to improve this step of design. These operators help the designer to modify the interfaces and to reuse parts of interfaces. We have estimated the saving of time in two case studies.

Sketching consists of a widely practiced activity during early design phases of product in general and for user interface development in particular in order to convey informal specifications of the interface before actually implementing it. It is quite interesting to observe that designers as well as end users have abilities to sketch parts or whole of the final user interface they want, while discussing the advantages and shortcomings. SketchiXML consists of a multiplatform multi-agent interactive application that enables designers, developers, or even end users to sketch user interfaces with different levels of details and support for different contexts of use. The results of the sketching are then analyzed to produce interface specifications independently of any context, including user and platform. These specifications are exploited to progressively produce one or several interfaces, for one or many users, platforms, and environments.

When the user interface (UI) has to be specified, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the worst thing one can do is attempt to write a natural language specification for it. Nevertheless, this practice is still common, and it is therefore a difficult task to move from text-based requirements and problem-space concepts to a final UI design, and then back again. Especially for the specification of interactive UIs, however, actors must frequently switch between high-level descriptions and detailed screens. In our research we found that advanced UI specifications therefore have to be made up of interconnected artefacts that have distinct levels of abstraction. With regards to the transparency and traceability of the rationale of the UI specification, transitions and dependencies must be visual and traversable. We introduce a modelbased UI specification method that interactively integrates interdisciplinary and informal modelling languages with different fidelities of UI prototyping to an interactive design rationale. With an innovative experimental tool we assemble models and design to an interactive UI specification. With a zoomable user interface (ZUI) approach, we can visualize the modelled artefacts and the overall UI specification space on desktop computers as well as on megapixel displays.

Abstract When the user interface should be specified, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the worst thing to do is write a natural language specification for it. Although this practice is still common, it is a challenging task to move from text-based requirements and problem-space concepts to a final UI design, and then back. Especially for user interface specification, actors must frequently switch between high-level descriptions and low-level detailed screens. In our research we found out that advanced specifications should to be made up of interconnected artefacts that have distinct levels of abstraction. With regards to the transparency and traceability of the rationale of the specification process, transitions and dependencies must be visual and traversable. For this purpose, a user interface specification method is introduced that interactively integrates interdisciplinary and informal modelling languages with different levels of fidelity of user interface prototyping. With an innovative experimental tool, we finally assemble models and design to an interactive user interface specifications. 1.