Continuing Work in Model-Based User Interfaces

1. Continuing Work in Model-Based User Interfaces Jeffrey Nichols 05-830: Advanced User Interface Software

2. Last time… • Model-based User Interfaces • Automatic generation of the user interface so the programmer won’t do a bad job. • Dialog boxes are relatively easy to generate • The full application interface is hard to generate • Abstract descriptions of the interface can be longer and harder to generate than implementing the interface itself. • Interface builders turned out to be easier…

3. Research continued… • Multiple models were integrated • Relational models were developed to explicitly link other kinds of models • Data models became more detailed • Task models became very important

4. Research continued… Fragmented into two different approaches • Software engineering approach (early 90’s-) • Very detailed models to improve overall design process • Intelligent design assistants instead of automatic generation • Significant use of task models • Ubiquitous computing approach (2000-) • Tons of “invisible” processors that perform tasks for us • UIs for these processors are presented on other devices (mobile phone, PDA, speech, etc.) • Impossible to manually build user interfaces for every combination

5. What are task models, anyway? • Description of the process a user takes to reach a goal in a specific domain • Typically have hierarchical structure • Introduced by GOMS • Number of different task modeling languages • GOMS • UAN • ConcurTaskTrees

6. Developed by Fabio Paterno et al. for the design of user interfaces Goals Graphical for easy interpretation Concurrent model for representing UI tasks Different task types Represent all tasks, including those performed by the system Used almost universally by new model-based systems ConcurTaskTrees

7. Three phases Hierarchically decompose the tasks Identify the temporal relationships among tasks at same level Identify what objects are manipulated and what actions can be performed on them, and assign these to the tasks as appropriate. Temporal Relationships T1 [] T2 - Choice T1 ||| T2 - Interleaving T1 |[]| T2 - Synchronization T1 >> T2 - Enabling T1 []>> T2 - Enabling with Information Passing T1 [> T2 - Deactivation T1* - Iteration T1(n) - Finite Iteration [T1] - Optional T – Recursion Task Building Process

8. Note: First example is ambiguous Example

9. Another Example

10. Building/Editing Task Models • Tools are available • ConcurTaskTrees Environment http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/ctte.html or Google for “ConcurTaskTrees”

11. Software Engineering Approach • Lots and lots of systems! • MasterMind • Angel Puerta’s work at Stanford • Mecano, Mobi-D, XIML • UIML • Cameleon Project • Teresa • USIXML • etc…

12. MasterMind • One of the first system to integrate multiple models together

13. Mobi-D • Set of tools to support a clearly defined development cycle • Uses a series of different models • Explicit relationships that specify how the models are related to each other • Explicit interaction between end users and developers

14. Mobi-D Models • User-task Model • Describes tasks the user performs and what interaction capabilities are needed • Domain Model • Models of the entities that are manipulated in an interface and their properties • Dialog Model • Describes the human-computer conversation at a low level • Presentation Model • Specifies how the interaction objects appear in all of the different states of the interface. • Relations • Describes how each of the models relate to each other • Tasks/Domain, Dialog/Presentation, Tasks/Dialog, etc.

15. Mobi-D Process • Elicit user tasks • Start with informal description and then convert to outline (basis for task models in Mobi-D) • More formal task analysis methods could probably be used • User-task and domain modeling • Skeleton domain model is built from task outline • Developer refines model • Explicit methods for generalizing pieces of model for reuse in other interface designs • Presentation and Dialog design • Decision support tools provide recommendations from model and interface guidelines (if available) • System steps through task model and helps designer build final interface • By carrying the task model through the process, Mobi-D’s designers believe users can provide more useful feedback

16. Mobi-D Discussion • Provides assistance rather than automating design • Recommendations do not limit flexibility, but organize the design process • For usability engineers, not everyday users • Benefits come from reuse among small projects or for managing interaction data from a large project • Models can be large and appear to require significant effort to develop • Spawned a profitable company that does UI work

17. XIML eXtensible Interface Markup Language • Based on Mobi-D work • Supports full development lifecycle • Used by RedWhale Software to drive their interface consultant business • They have developed many tools • move interaction data to/from XIML • Leverage data in XIML to better understand various interfaces • Automate parts of the interface design process

18. Example Use for XIML Multi-platform interface development

19. Other Software Engineering Systems • UIML (http://www.harmonia.com/) • Originally a research project at Virginia Tech, now being developed commercially by Harmonia • Goal is platform independent language for describing UI • Early versions were not very platform independent • Recent versions using task models to automatically generate parts of the old language that were not platform independent • Teresa (http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/teresa.html) • Transformation Environment for inteRacti • Tool for taking ConcurTaskTrees models, building an abstract interface, and then building a concrete interface on multiple platforms. • USIXML (http://www.usixml.org) • Many of the same features of XIML • Novel aspect is the use of graph structure for modeling relations (seems very complex)

20. Ubiquitous Computing Approach “Pervasive computing cannot succeed if every device must be accompanied by its own interactive software and hardware…What is needed is a universal interactive service protocol to which any compliant interactive client can connect and access any service.” -Dan Olsen (Xweb paper) The web comes close to solving this problem, but is interactively insufficient.

21. Ubiquitous Computing Approach • There are two problems here: • Infrastructure issues • How do devices communicate? • How do devices discover each other? • User Interfaces issues • Are devices described sufficiently to build a good UI? • How are interfaces generated? • How can one interface be created for controlling combinations of related devices?

22. Infrastructure Issues • Possible to investigate these issues without automatically generating UIs • Being addressed by lots of systems • Commercially • UPnP, JINI, Salutation, HAVi • Research • Speakeasy (PARC), many others… • Most systems that address the UI issues also have some infrastructure component

23. Systems addressing UI issues • XWeb • Now known as ICE – Interactive Computing Everywhere • ICrafter • A system for integrating user interfaces from multiple devices • Supple • A system for automatically generating interfaces with a focus on customization/personalization. • Personal Universal Controller • My research…

24. XWeb • Work by Dan Olsen and group at BYU • Premise: • Apply the web metaphor to services in general • Support higher levels of interactivity

25. XWeb Protocols • Based upon the architecture of the web • XTP Interaction Protocol • Server-side data has a tree structure • Structured Data in XML • URLs for location of objects • xweb://my.site/games/chess/3/@winner • xweb://automate.home/lights/livingroom/ • xweb://automate.home/lights/familyroom/-1

26. XWeb & XTP • CHANGE message (similar to GET in HTTP) • Sequence of editing operations to apply to a sub-tree • Set an attribute’s value • Delete an attribute • Change some child object to a new value • Insert a new child object • Move a subtree to a new location • Copy a subtree to a new location

27. Platform Independent Interfaces • Two models are specified • DataView – The attributes of the service • XView – A mapping of the attributes into high-level “interactors” • Atomic • Numeric • Time • Date • Enumeration • Text • Links • Aggregation • Group • List

28. XWeb Example DataView

29. XWeb Example XView

30. XWeb Example Interface

31. Other XWeb Details • Has simple approach for adjusting to different screen sizes • Shrink portions of the interface • Add additional columns of widgets • Also capable of generating speech interfaces • Based on a tree traversal approach like Universal Speech Interfaces

32. ICrafter • Part of the Interactive Workspaces research project at Stanford • Main objective: • “to allow users of interactive workspaces to flexibly interact with services” • Contribution • An intelligent infrastructure to find services, aggregate them into a single interface, and generate an interface for the aggregate service. • In practice, much of the interface generation is done by hand though automatic generation is supported.

33. ICrafter Architecture

34. How is aggregation accomplished? • High-level service interfaces (programmatic) • Data Producer • Data Consumer • The Interface Manager has pattern generators • Recognize patterns in the services used • Generate interfaces for these patterns • This means that unique functionality will not be available in the aggregate interface

35. Automatic Generation in ICrafter

36. Manual Generation in ICrafter

37. Supple • Eventual goal is to support automatic personalization of user interfaces • Treats generation of interfaces as an optimization problem • Can take into account usage patterns in generation • Krzysztof Gajos and Daniel S. Weld, “SUPPLE: Automatically Generating User Interfaces” in Proceedings of Intelligent User Interfaces 2004, Funchal, Portugal.

38. Modeling Users with Traces • Supple uses traces to keep a usage model • Sequences of events: • <interface element, old value, new value> • Interfaces are rendered taking the traces into account (though traces are not required) • Trails are segmented at interface close or reset

39. Generating with Optimization • Uses a branch-and-bound search to explore space of alternatives • Guaranteed to find an optimal solution

40. Device-specific measure of how appropriate a control is for manipulating a variable of a given type Cost of navigation between subsequent controls in a trace Total cost for one user trace Total cost of all traces Optimization Equation

41. Screenshots

42. Personal Universal Controller • My work with Brad • Problem: • Appliance interfaces are too complex and too idiosyncratic. • Solution: • Separate the interface from the appliance and use a device with a richer interface to control the appliance: • PDA, mobile phone, etc.

43. Approach Use mobile devices to control all appliances in the environment Specifications Control Feedback Mobile Devices Appliances Key Features Two-way communication, Abstract Descriptions, Multiple Platforms, Automatic Interface Generation

44. The PUC System Architecture APPLIANCES (Stereo, Alarm Clock, etc.) PUC DEVICES (automatic interface generation) ADAPTOR (publishes description + appliance state + controls appliance) PROTOCOL (two-way communication of specification & state) PROTOCOL (two-way communication of specification & state) device specification & state feedback COMMUNICATION (802.11, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.) COMMUNICATION (802.11, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.) control

45. Research Approach • Hand-design remote control interfaces • Determine functional information needed from appliances to design user interfaces • Design language for describing appliance functions • Build interface generators for multiple platforms • Perform user studies to evaluate the interface generators

46. Language Design Informed by hand-designed interfaces • What functional information was needed to create interfaces? Additional Requirements • Support complete functionality of appliance • No specific layout information • Only one way to specify anything Full documentation available at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pebbles/puc/

47. Language Elements Elements • State variables & commands • Labels • Group tree • Dependency information Example media player specification • Play, stop, pause, next track, previous track • Play list

48. Language Elements, cont. State Variables and Commands • Represent functions of appliance • State variables have types • Boolean, Enumeration, Integer, String, etc. • Variables sufficient for most functions but not all • e.g. “seek” button on a Radio

49. Language Elements, cont. Label Information One label not suitable everywhere • The optimal label length changes with screen size • Speech interfaces may benefit from pronunciation and text-to-speech information “Label Dictionary” • A group of semantically similar labels • Different lengths • Information for different modalities

50. Language Elements, cont. Label Information One label not suitable everywhere • The optimal label length changes with screen size • Speech interfaces may benefit from pronunciation and text-to-speech information “Label Dictionary” • A group of semantically similar labels • Different lengths • Information for different modalities