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USIXML: A User Interface Description Language for Context-Sensitive User Interfaces

Quentin Limbourg, Jean Vanderdonckt, Benjamin Michotte, Laurent Bouillon, Murielle Florins, Daniela Trevisan


Abstract

This paper presents USIXML (USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language), a User Interface Description Language aimed at describing user interfaces with various levels of details and abstractions, depending on the context of use. USIXML supports a family of user interfaces such as, but not limited to: deviceindependent, platform-independent, modality independent, and ultimately context-independent. This paper consequently details how context-sensitive user interfaces may be specified and produced from the USIXML specifications. USIXML allows specifying multiple models involved in user interface design such as: task, domain, presentation, dialog, and context of use, which is in turn decomposed into user, platform, and environment. These models are structured according to the four layers of the Cameleon framework: task and concepts, abstract user interface, concrete user interface, and final user interface. To support relationships between these models, a model for inter-model mapping is also introduced that cover forward and reverse engineering as well as translation from one context of use to another.
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