Designing User Interfaces by Direct Composition: Prototyping Appearance and Behavior of User Interfaces

Abstract

The design of the user interface of interactive systems is one of the major tasks in software engineering. User interfaces tend to be complex software products which reflect specific properties of applications as well as technological properties of the hardware and software used for the realization. The knowledge necessary to design good user interfaces can be divided into three categories: knowledge about the appearance and behavior of user interfaces, knowledge about the design process to create user interfaces, and knowledge about the application. This categorization is reflected in the conceptual models of interactive systems necessary to understand systems during design and usage. An approach called ‘Direct Composition’ of user interfaces offers the possibility to simplify these conceptual models and thereby the process of user interface design. Within this approach user interface objects comprise aspects of manipulation, visualization, and construction, and can take on different roles according to the models involved. Additionally, this approach offers the possibility of end-user adaptivity for user interfaces.