Building Multiplatform User Interfaces using UIML Mir Farooq
Building Multi-platform User Interfaces using UIML Mir Farooq Ali Computer Science, Virginia Tech May 9, 2003
Outline • • Multi-platform User Interface (UI) problem User Interface Markup Language (UIML) Task Modeling Future Research
Introduction • Variety of Hardware • Variety of target platforms Java Swing Internet Explorer 6. 0 for HTML Netscape 6. 1 for HTML
Introduction • Users want access to the same applications and data • Traditional approaches are geared towards a single platform • New approach is needed to build multiplatform UIs
Goals for UIML • Able to describe implementations of UIs that are – Multi-platform – Multi-lingual • Usable for non-traditional UIs: voice, etc • Same expressive power as target languages (Java, HTML, WML, …)
UIML • UIML is an XML-based markup language • Meta-language for UIs • Can be used currently in conjunction with platform-specific vocabularies to create Uis – A vocabulary is defined to be the set of UI widgets, their properties and events for one specific platform
UIML (Cont’d…) • Provides complete description of a UI • Renderers are needed to take UIML file and render it to UI • Rendering can be done through – Interpretation – Translation • Renderers are available for Java, HTML, WML, Voice. XML and Palm. OS
Example UI Widgets Events associated with widgets Look and feel
Separation of Concerns • UIML considers an UI to be composed of 4 sections – structure – style – behavior – content
UIML (Cont’d…) • Skeleton of UIML document <? xml version="1. 0" encoding="ISO-8859 -1" ? > <!DOCTYPE uiml PUBLIC "-//UIT//DTD UIML 2. 0 Draft//EN" "UIML 2_0 g. dtd"> <uiml> <head>. . . </head> <interface> <structure>. . . </structure> <style>. . . </style> <behavior>. . . </behavior> <content>. . . </content> </interface> <peers>. . . </peers> <template>. . . </template> </uiml>
UIML <structure> • Structure section indicates the hierarchical relationship between various ‘parts’ Widget <structure> <part id="Big. Frame" class="JFrame"> <part id="label 1" class="JLabel"/> </part> </structure>
UIML <style> • Style section describes “look and feel” of UI using properties for individual parts <style> <property part-name="Big. Frame" name="title">UIML Example</property> <property part-name="label 1" name="text">Hello World!</property> </style>
UIML <behavior> • Behavior section defines what happens when you perform any action on the parts <behavior> <rule> <condition> <event class="action. Performed" partname="top. Button"/> </condition> <action> <property part-name="label 1" name="text">Top button pressed. </property> </action> </rule> </behavior>
UIML Examples 1. Hello World example • • • Java Swing WML HTML 2. UI with events • • UIML with Java Swing vocabulary Actual Java Swing program
Example: UI for 3 Platforms Date book: Java Palm OS WML
What UIML Is and Is Not • UIML: is a language for implementing UIs • UIML: is not a language for UI design (We assume UIML is generated by a model, specification language, design tool, or even manually)
Example: Vocabularies & Mappings • Recall: <part class=“Button” name=“submit”> <style><property name=“title”>OK!</property></style> </part> • Vocabulary: class, property, event names (e. g. , “Button”) • Mapping: <d-class name=“Button" … maps-to="javax. swing. JButton">… </d-class> versus <d-class name="Button" … maps-to=“html: input">… </d-class>
How UIML Addresses Multi. Platform UIs 1. Tree structure (cascading): describe a family of UIs as in tree form 2. Generic vocabulary + transformation 3. Building block of overall methodology
1. Tree Structure Factor out common elements to UIs on all platforms in form of an XML tree – Structure: changes across families – Style: changes across families – Content: may change across families – Behavior: may largely remain intact – Logic: API to logic unchanged – Presentation: differs by family
2. Generic Vocabulary + Transformation • Vocabulary is defined outside UIML • Vocabulary represents set of abstractions. Abstractions could be… 1. identical to UI toolkit (“Platform-Specific vocabulary”) 2. cross UI toolkits (e. g. , generic across Java/HTML, Voice. XML, WML) 3. domain-specific (e. g. , abstractions to build UIs for news articles -- title, abstract, body, navigation)
Sample Generic Vocabulary (#2 in Previous List) Generic Part UIML Class Name Generic Top Container Generic Area Generic List G: Top. Container G: Area G: List Generic G: Label G: Button G: Icon G: Radio. Button Label Button Icon Radiobutton
Transformations • Transformation maps UIML document with generic vocabulary to UIML document with platform-specific vocabulary <part class=G: Top. Container> <part class=H: html> <part class=H: head>. . . <part class=H: title>. . . <part class=body>. . .
Example of How UIML Is Used UIML describing application with generic vocabulary Transform Engine UIML/HTML vocabulary UIML/Java vocabulary HTML Renderer Java Renderer HTML for Web browser Java for Swing toolkit
3. UIML as Building Block Generic UIML for Java Swing UIML Family Model for desktop platform UIML for HTML Task Model UIML Family Model for Voice platform UIML Family Model for WML platform Model->UIML Transformation 1 UIML for Voice. XML Platform-Specific UIML for WML UIML->UIML Transformation
Multi-platform UIs • Family model is in UIML using generic vocabulary – Generic vocabulary contains UI widgets like G: Top. Container, G: Label, etc.
Task Model • Using Concur. Task. Tree notation – Developed by Fabio Paterno, CNUCE-C. N. R. , Pisa, Italy • Hierarchical tree-like structure – Each node in tree indicates a task – Temporal operator exists between adjacent sibling tasks
Task Types • Four different task types – User – Interaction – Abstract – Application • Eight different kinds of temporal operators
Use of Task Model • Developer builds task model specifying task types and temporal operators • Transformation done by system to create generic UIML, mapping – tasks to UIML ‘parts’ or widgets – temporal operators to UIML ‘behavior’
Sample Task Model
Task Model-centric Interaction Design Task Model UIML for Java Swing Family Model for desktop platform UIML for HTML Family Model for Voice platform UIML for Voice. XML Family Model for phone platform UIML for WML Interaction design Task/Domain analysis Interaction s/w design Interaction s/w impl. Traditional Usability Engineering
Future Research • Accessibility – Treat accessible toolkits as a separate platform • TIDE – Enhance the current version – Introduce more platforms
TIDE
Publications • CADUI’ 2002 Full Paper • CHI’ 2002 Short Paper • Book chapter in edited book “Multi-Device User Interfaces: Engineering and Application Frameworks”
Questions?
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