Dynamically generated multi-modal application interfaces

• Main Author: Kost, Stefan
• Other Authors: Technische Universität Dresden, Informatik
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden 2006
• Subjects: adaptive Schnittstellen; ARCH; MMI; UIML; GUI; XML; abstract interface description; adaptive Interfaces; interface renderer; ddc:004; rvk:ST 280; ARCH-Prozess; Benutzermodell; Benutzerschnittstellenverwaltungssystem; Graphische Benutzeroberfläche
• Online Access: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:swb:14-1150806179876-45678; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:swb:14-1150806179876-45678; http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/1518/1150806179876-4567.pdf

This work introduces a new UIMS (User Interface Management System), which aims to solve numerous problems in the field of user-interface development arising from hard-coded use of user interface toolkits. The presented solution is a concrete system architecture based on the abstract ARCH model consisting of an interface abstraction-layer, a dialog definition language called GIML (Generalized Interface Markup Language) and pluggable interface rendering modules. These components form an interface toolkit called GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit). With the aid of GITK (Generalized Interface ToolKit) one can build an application, without explicitly creating a concrete end-user interface. At runtime GITK can create these interfaces as needed from the abstract specification and run them. Thereby GITK is equipping one application with many interfaces, even kinds of interfaces that did not exist when the application was written. It should be noted that this work will concentrate on providing the base infrastructure for adaptive/adaptable system, and does not aim to deliver a complete solution. This work shows that the proposed solution is a fundamental concept needed to create interfaces for everyone, which can be used everywhere and at any time. This text further discusses the impact of such technology for users and on the various aspects of software systems and their development. The targeted main audience of this work are software developers or people with strong interest in software development.