Model-Driven Engineering of User Interfaces: Promises, Successes, Failures, and Challenges

ABSTRACT
Model-driven engineering (MDE) of user interfaces consists in describing a user interface and aspects involved in it (e.g., task, domain, context of use) in models from which a final interface is produced. With one big win in mind: when the user’s requirements or the context of use change, the models change accordingly and so does the supporting user interface. Models and a method for developing user interfaces based on MDE are presented in this tutorial supporting forward engineering (a new interface is produced), reverse engineering (an existing interface is improved), and lateral engineering (an existing interface is adapted to a new context of use). Software supporting this method will be used based on UsiXML (User Interface eXtensible Markup Language), a XML-compliant user interface description language.

 

Jean Vanderdonckt

Jean Vanderdonckt is Full Professor in Computer Science at Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Louvain School of Management (IAG-LSM) where he leads the Belgian Laboratory of Computer-Human Interaction (BCHI). This laboratory is conducting research, development, and consulting services in the domain of user interface engineering, a domain that is located midway between software engineering, human-computer interaction, and usability engineering.

Jean Vanderdonckt is the founder and the coordinator of the UsiXML Consortium that structures activities towards the definition and the usage of UsiXML (User Interface eXtensible Markup Language) as a common User Interface Description Language. He is the coordinator of HCI activities within the Similar network of excellence, The European research taskforce creating human-machine interfaces SIMILAR to human-human communication). He is also a member of the European COST n°294 Action MAUSE on usability engineering. He is a Senior member of IEEE, ACM, and SIGCHI. He is also co-editor in chief of Springer HCI Series of books.

Belgian Laboratory of Computer-Human Interaction (BCHI),
Louvain School of Management (IAG), Université catholique de Louvain,
Place des Doyens, 1 – B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium)
Phone: +32 10/478525 – Fax: +32 10/478324 – Skype: jeanvdd1712
jean.vanderdonckt@uclouvain.be, http://www.isys.ucl.ac.be/bchi/members/jva
http://www.usixml.org, http://www.similar.cc, http://www.openinterface.org