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Transcript of Lecture 13: Continuing Work in Model-Based User Interfaces Brad Myers Slides originally authored by...
Lecture 13:
Continuing Work in Model-Based User Interfaces
Brad Myers
Slides originally authored by Jeffrey Nichols, 2004
05-830: Advanced User Interface Software
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…
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
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
What are task models, anyway?
Key part of many current HCI approaches 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
ConcurTaskTrees 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
Task Building Process 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
Another Example
T1 [] T2 – Choice T1 >> T2 - Enabling T1 []>> T2 - Enabling with
Information Passing T1 [> T2 – Deactivation
Building/Editing Task Models Tools are available
ConcurTaskTrees Environment
http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/ctte.html or Google for “ConcurTaskTrees”
Software Engineering Approach
Lots and lots of systems! Commercial work MasterMind Angel Puerta’s work at Stanford
Mecano, Mobi-D, XIML UIML Cameleon Project
Teresa USIXML etc…
Software Engineering Approach Commercial work “Model-based design” Example: BPMN “business
process modeling notation” Business experts should be
able to author models Converted into code to
support the process (requires people) Keynote at ICSE’08: Herbert Hanselmann: Challenges in
Automotive Software Engineering “Model-based design (MBD) of functional behaviour has been a
big help in the recent past”
Mobi-D Angel Puerta, IUI’97 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
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.
Mobi-D Process1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
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 http://www.redwhale.com/ that does UI work
XIMLeXtensible Interface Markup Language XIML.org 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
Other 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)
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.
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?
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
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 Jeff Nichol’s research…
XWeb
Work by Dan Olsen and group at BYU E.g. UIST’2000, pp.191 - 200
Premise: Apply the web metaphor to services in general Support higher levels of interactivity
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
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
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
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
ICrafter
Part of the Interactive Workspaces research project at Stanford
Ponnekanti, et. al. Ubicomp’2001 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.
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
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.
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
Generating with Optimization Uses a branch-and-
bound search to explore space of alternatives Guaranteed to find
an optimal solution
Optimization EquationCost of navigation between subsequent controls in a trace
Device-specific measure of how appropriate a control is for manipulating a variable of a given type
Total cost for one user traceTotal cost of all traces
Personal Universal Controller
Jeff Nichol’s PhD work 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.
Control
Feedback
Approach
Specifications
Appliances Mobile Devices
Use mobile devices to control all appliances in the environment
Key FeaturesTwo-way communication, Abstract Descriptions, Multiple Platforms, Automatic Interface Generation
The PUC System Architecture
PROTOCOL(two-way communicationof specification & state)
COMMUNICATION(802.11, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.)
PUC DEVICES(automatic interface generation)
PROTOCOL(two-way communicationof specification & state)
COMMUNICATION(802.11, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.)
APPLIANCES(Stereo, Alarm Clock, etc.)
ADAPTOR(publishes description +
appliance state + controls appliance)
control
device specification & state feedback
Automatic Generation of UIsBenefits
All interfaces consistent for a userWith conventions of the handheldEven from multiple manufacturers
Addresses hotel alarm clock problem Can take into account user preferences Multiple modalities (GUI + Speech UI)
A Hard Problem Previous automatic systems have not
generated high quality interfaces
PUC Specification Language XML Full documentation for the
specification language and protocol:
http://www.pebbles.hcii.cmu.edu/puc/
Contains sample specification for a stereo
Properties of PUC Language State variables & commands
Each can have multiple labels Useful when not enough room
Typed variables Base types: Boolean, string,
enumerated, integers,fixed-point, floating-point, etc.
Optional labels for values Hierarchical Structure
Groups
Dependency Information Crucial for high-quality interfaces Expressed as <active-if> clauses
Operations: Equals, Less-Than,
Greater-Than Combined Logically
AND, OR Used for:
Dynamic graying out Layout Widget selection
Specifications Have working specifications for:
Audiophase stereo X-10 lights control Sony CamCorder Windows Media Player Audio ReQuest hardware MP3 player WinAmp Media Player Elevator Parts of GMC Yukon Denali SUV Etc.
Generating Speech Interfaces “Universal Speech Interface” (USI) project
Prof. Roni Rosenfeld of CMU http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~usi
Creates grammar, language model and pronunciation dictionary from PUC specification Pronunciation from labels using phonetic rules Can provide other pronunciations as labels for fine-tuning
Will use dependency information to help with disambiguation and explanation
Supports queries and spoken feedback Paraphrases as confirmation
Adaptors “Adaptors” provide the interface to existing
(and future) appliances If do not support specification language directly
Custom hardware Custom software
Lutron Windows Media Player
X-10 Light switches, etc.
AV/C (standard protocol) Sony CamCorder
HAVi UPnP
Axis Camera
Generating Combined UIs
For multiple appliances, such as home theaters
Specify content flow Combined controls
Summative Study Compared PUC to manufacturer’s
interfaces for HP and Canon printer/fax/copiers
PUC twice as fast, 1/3 the errors Consistent: another factor of 2 faster
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
HP HP-PUC HP-Consistent
Canon Canon-PUC Canon-Consistent
Ave
rag
e T
ime
(sec
)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
HP HP-PUC HP-Consistent
Canon Canon-PUC Canon-Consistent
Num
ber
of F
ailu
res
Details of the 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/
Language ElementsElements
State variables & commands Labels Group tree Dependency information
Example media player specification
Play, stop, pause, next track, previous track
Play list
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
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
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
Language Elements, cont.
Group Tree Specify organization
of functions We use n-ary tree
with variables or commands at leaves
Also used for specifying complex types
Lists
Unions
Language Elements,cont.Group Tree
Specify organization of functions
We use n-ary tree with variables or commands at leaves
Also used for specifying complex types
Lists
Unions
Language Elements,cont.Dependency Information
Formulas that specify when a variable or command is active in terms of other state variables
Equals, Greater Than, Less Than, Is Defined
Linked with logical operators (AND, OR)
Allows feedback to user when a function is not available
Graphical Interface GeneratorRule-based approach
Multiple phases that iteratively transform a specification into a user interface
Focuses on panel structure of user interface
Small groups of controls have basic layouts
Complexity comes from structure of groups
Structure can be inferred from dependency info!
Generation Process1. Determine conceptual layout
Infer panel structure from dependencies using “mutual exclusion” property
Choose controls (decision tree) Choose row layout
(one column, two column, etc.)
2. Allocate space Examine panel contents and
choose sizes
3. Instantiate and place controls
4. Fix layout problems
Generation Process1. Determine conceptual layout
Infer panel structure from dependencies using “mutual exclusion” property
Choose controls (decision tree) Choose row layout
(one column, two column, etc.)
2. Allocate space Examine panel contents and
choose sizes
3. Instantiate and place controls
4. Fix layout problems
Without layout fixing rules
With layout fixing rules