Transformations on a dialog tree: rule-based maping of content to style

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONOver the past ten years a broad consensus has developed that decomposing applications into separate computational and interface modules is desirable. The motivations for modularity in user interfaces are similar to those elsewhere in computer science, and center around the benefits of hiding internal implementations from other modules in a system. Modularity allows reuse of each component with compatible versions of the other components, and allows separate development processes for each component. In user interfaces, modularity allows the reuse of applications with different interfaces, perhaps for different user classes, window systems, or devices. Modularity also allows application and interface experts, including human factors engineers and graphic designers, to cooperate while minimizing the coordination required among them.Less consensus exists, however, on whether interface modules should be generated manually using direct manipulation editors or automatically by rule-based systems. This paper focuses on the rule-based approach of the Interactive Transaction Systems (ITS) project at IBM Research. We describe the internal tree representation of a dialog in ITS, and show how it is transformed from an abstract, style-independent specification into a concrete, style-specific one under control of a set of executable rules. We argue that the tree is an advance in interface tools in how it is generated automatically, in the fine level of granularity it allows in controlling interface style, and in the uniform control it provides over generic and application specific style objects.We begin with an overview of the ITS system. We then describe the benefits of automatically generating interfaces from abstract dialog specifications. The remainder of the paper gives examples of the various transformations that translate abstract dialogs into interfaces in specific styles.Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Asociation for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. 0 1989 ACM O-89791-335-3/89/001 l/O067 $1.50 OVERVIEW OF ITSIn the last two years, a small interdisciplinary group in IBM Research has been creating a new, comprehensive approach to computer application development (called ITS). The aims are to (a) greatly reduce the workload in designing, implementing, and testing new computer applications; (b) provide fast prototyping of user interfaces in new computer applications (within a few hours of when a designer begins work); and (c) enable excellent, consistent, well-tested user interface styles.ITS provides software tools for user interface andapplication development, and a run-time environment for application execution. During this time we have created three different styles, and have encoded t...

Environment for rapidly creating interactive design tools

“…generate interfaces from textual specifications use rules in order to layout the various scenes in the interface Wiecha et al 1989;Bennett et al 1989). One way to implement the rules is to have them generate a set of constraints from a prototypical set of constraints.…”