Title: Fully automatic generation of web user interfaces for multiple devices from a high-level model based on communicative acts

Authors: Jurgen Falb, Roman Popp, Thomas Rock, Helmut Jelinek, Edin Arnautovic, Hermann Kaindl

Addresses: Institute of Computer Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' Institute of Computer Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' Siemens AG Austria, Siemensstrasse, 1210 Vienna, Austria. ' Siemens AG Austria, Siemensstrasse, 1210 Vienna, Austria. ' Institute of Computer Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstra-e 27-29, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' Institute of Computer Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29, 1040 Vienna, Austria

Abstract: The problems involved in the development of web User Interfaces (UIs) become even more severe through the ubiquitous use of a variety of devices such as PCs, mobile phones and PDAs. Each of these devices has its own characteristics that require a special web UI. Therefore, we developed and implemented an approach to generate web UIs for multiple devices fully automatically from a high-level model. In contrast to previous approaches focusing on abstracting the UI per se, we make use of speech act theory from the philosophy of language for the specification of desired intentions in interactions. Our new approach of using communicative acts in high-level models of UIs allows their creation with less technical knowledge, since such models are easier to provide than the web UI code in a usual programming language. From one such high-level model, multiple web UIs for diverse devices can be rendered fully automatically using a number of heuristics. A generated web UI for a PDA has already been put into real-world operation and its usability was informally evaluated as good.

Keywords: web user interfaces; UI generation; multiple devices; UI models; interaction design; communicative acts; speech act theory; communications; PDAs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2009.028618

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2009 Vol.5 No.2, pp.135 - 161

Published online: 21 Sep 2009 *

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