Cascading Dialog Modeling with UsiXML

Abstract

This paper discusses multi-level dialog specifications for user interfaces of multitarget interactive systems and it proposes a step-wise method that combines a transformational approach for model-to-model derivation and an interactive editing of dialog models for tailoring the derived models. This method provides a synthesis of existing solutions for dialog modeling using a XMLbased User Interface Description Language, UsiXML, along with State-WebCharts notation for expressing the dialog at a high level of abstraction. Our aim is to push forward the design and reuse of dialog specifications throughout several levels of abstraction ranging from task and domain models until the final user interface thanks to a mechanism based on cascading style sheets. In this way, it is expected that the dialog properties are not only inherited from one level to another but also are made much more reusable than in the past. Abstract. This paper discusses multi-level dialog specifications for user interfaces of multi-target interactive systems and it proposes a step-wise method that combines a transformational approach for model-to-model derivation and an interactive editing of dialog models for tailoring the derived models. This method provides a synthesis of existing solutions for dialog modeling using a XMLbased User Interface Description Language, UsiXML, along with StateWebCharts notation for expressing the dialog at a high level of abstraction. Our aim is to push forward the design and reuse of dialog specifications throughout several levels of abstraction ranging from task and domain models until the final user interface thanks to a mechanism based on cascading style sheets. In this way, it is expected that the dialog properties are not only inherited from one level to another but also are made much more reusable than in the past.

A Formal Ontology for Describing Interactive Behaviors and Supporting Automated Testing on User Interfaces

“…For that, some authors have proposed to use a notation based on statecharts called SWC (StateWebCharts) [9] to specify the UsiXML dialog. The same authors [8] have demonstrated that when using SWC, it is possible to describe the system behavior at di®erent levels of abstraction using UsiXML.…”

“…From W3C Web Ontology Language we get concepts for graphical components (behavior and presentation aspects) commonly used to build web and mobile applications, and also the textual representations used to describe how users interact with those graphical components. SWC [8] inspire concepts used in the dialog.…”

A Behavior-Based Ontology for Supporting Automated Assessment of Interactive Systems

“…The dialog component of UsiXML is a state machine and it de scribes concepts of states, conditions, transitions and actions. Using a dedicated notation called SWC (StateWebCha1ts) [9], some authors [8] have demonstrated that it is possible to de scribe the system behavior at different levels of abstraction using UsiXML [8].…”

“…The OWL specifi cation of the ontology (W3C Web Ontology Language) en compasses concepts (behavior and presentation aspects) of graphical components commonly used to build web and mobile applications and it aise contains textual representations that are used to describe how users internet with those graphical com ponents. Previous works with SWC [8] aise inspit•ed the con cepts used for desci•ibing the dialog.…”

A context-aware dialog model for multi-device web development

“… Dialog models should be considered at different levels of abstraction. Moreover, the development process might be started from the dialog models rather than from the task models [10].  The creation of SFEs requires dialog models to be prepared to handle context information [8].…”