Design alternatives for user interface management sytems based on experience with COUSIN

  • Authors:

  • Philip J. Hayes;Pedro A. Szekely;Richard A. Lerner

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA;Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA;Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

  • Venue:
  • CHI '85 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 1985

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Abstract

User interface management systems (UIMSs) provide user interfaces to application systems based on an abstract definition of the interface required. This approach can provide higher-quality interfaces at a lower construction cost. In this paper we consider three design choices for UIMSs which critically affect the quality of the user interfaces built with a UIMS, and the cost of constructing the interfaces. The choices are examined in terms of a general model of a UIMS. They concern the sharing of control between the UIMS and the applications it provides interfaces to, the level of abstraction in the definition of the information exchanged between user and application, and the level of abstraction in the definition of the sequencing of the dialogue. For each choice, we argue for a specific alternative. We go on to present COUSIN, a UIMS that provides graphical interfaces for a variety of applications based on highly abstracted interface definitions. COUSIN'S design corresponds to the alternatives we argued for in two out of three cases, and partially satisfies the third. An interface developed through, and run by COUSIN is described in some detail.