Link
Murielle Florins Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Jean Vanderdonckt Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces
Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Intelligent user interface
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
SESSION: Multi-platform interfaces table of contents
Pages: 140 - 147
Year of Publication: 2004
ISBN:1-58113-815-6
Abstract:
This paper introduces and describes the notion of graceful degradation as a method for supporting the design of user interfaces for multiplatform systems when the capabilities of each platform are very different. The approach is based on a set of transformational rules applied to a single user interface designed for the less constraint platform. A major concern of the graceful degradation approach is to guarantee a maximal continuity between the platform specific versions of the user interface. In order to guarantee the continuity property, a priority ordering between rules is proposed. That ordering permits to apply first the rules with a minimal impact on the multiplatform system continuity.
My Discussion:
This paper is strong in its overview of the thought and current work being done on ways to create a User Interface that can be used on multiple platforms, especially when the platforms differ strongly in capabilities, like workstations versus mobile phones. After the work in the early and mid-nineties where everything was about lowest-common denominator late-binding toolkits like Visix Galaxy and AWT, this paper also (briefly) lists the more recent approaches in cross-platform UIs as afforded by the XML / CSS revolution or XML transformations through XSLT, and UIs generated from high-level task descriptions like UIML. The paper then proceeds to explain its own method of creating UIs for platforms with different capabilites: examine a UI on three, increasingly abstract levels, being the 1) the Concrete UI which is an abstract view on the UI in terms of layout and what capabilities widgets in the lay-out have, 2) the Abstract UI, which is a view on the UI on the level what 'presentation units', here defined as a "presentation environment (e.g. a window or a panel) that supports the execution of a set of logically connected tasks", and 3) the Tasks and Concepts level. It then defines transformation rules for these levels, like "replace a widget used on the high-level platform for a simpler equivalent widget on the phone" for level 1 and "split a big window into smaller presentation units when going to smaller screens" for level 2 and "don't offer the user to perform a task that can't be done at all on smaller screens" for level 3. After describing this collection of rules, they are then prioritzed so as to create as little change in the UI when transforming it for less capable platforms while still ending up with a usable UI for the target. Of course, the rules thus end up being prioritized by level, rules on the lay-out and widget level to be applied first and rules like dropping whole tasks last. And that's, alas, where the paper stops. No discussion on how hard it is to automate these rules, on tools being worked on, if these rules even made sense when applying them to a UI process by a designer by hand as a sort of heuristic. Great collection of refernces, though.
Sensor-enhanced mobile web clients: an XForms approach
Murielle Florins Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Jean Vanderdonckt Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces
Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Intelligent user interface
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
SESSION: Multi-platform interfaces table of contents
Pages: 140 - 147
Year of Publication: 2004
ISBN:1-58113-815-6
Abstract:
This paper introduces and describes the notion of graceful degradation as a method for supporting the design of user interfaces for multiplatform systems when the capabilities of each platform are very different. The approach is based on a set of transformational rules applied to a single user interface designed for the less constraint platform. A major concern of the graceful degradation approach is to guarantee a maximal continuity between the platform specific versions of the user interface. In order to guarantee the continuity property, a priority ordering between rules is proposed. That ordering permits to apply first the rules with a minimal impact on the multiplatform system continuity.
My Discussion:
This paper is strong in its overview of the thought and current work being done on ways to create a User Interface that can be used on multiple platforms, especially when the platforms differ strongly in capabilities, like workstations versus mobile phones. After the work in the early and mid-nineties where everything was about lowest-common denominator late-binding toolkits like Visix Galaxy and AWT, this paper also (briefly) lists the more recent approaches in cross-platform UIs as afforded by the XML / CSS revolution or XML transformations through XSLT, and UIs generated from high-level task descriptions like UIML. The paper then proceeds to explain its own method of creating UIs for platforms with different capabilites: examine a UI on three, increasingly abstract levels, being the 1) the Concrete UI which is an abstract view on the UI in terms of layout and what capabilities widgets in the lay-out have, 2) the Abstract UI, which is a view on the UI on the level what 'presentation units', here defined as a "presentation environment (e.g. a window or a panel) that supports the execution of a set of logically connected tasks", and 3) the Tasks and Concepts level. It then defines transformation rules for these levels, like "replace a widget used on the high-level platform for a simpler equivalent widget on the phone" for level 1 and "split a big window into smaller presentation units when going to smaller screens" for level 2 and "don't offer the user to perform a task that can't be done at all on smaller screens" for level 3. After describing this collection of rules, they are then prioritzed so as to create as little change in the UI when transforming it for less capable platforms while still ending up with a usable UI for the target. Of course, the rules thus end up being prioritized by level, rules on the lay-out and widget level to be applied first and rules like dropping whole tasks last. And that's, alas, where the paper stops. No discussion on how hard it is to automate these rules, on tools being worked on, if these rules even made sense when applying them to a UI process by a designer by hand as a sort of heuristic. Great collection of refernces, though.
Link
John Barton Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Tim Kindberg Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Hui Dai Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Nissanka B. Priyantha Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Fahd Al-bin-ali Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
International World Wide Web Conference
Proceedings of the twelfth international conference on World Wide Web table of contents
Budapest, Hungary
SESSION: Mobility & wireless access
Pages: 80 - 89
Year of Publication: 2003
ISBN:1-58113-680-3
Abstract
This paper describes methods for service selection and service access for mobile, sensor-enhanced web clients such as wireless cameras or wireless PDAs with sensor devices attached. The clients announce their data-creating capabilities in "Produce" headers sent to servers; servers respond with forms that match these capabilities. Clients fill in these forms with sensor data as well as text or file data. The resultant system enables clients to access dynamically discovered services spontaneously, as their users engage in everyday nomadic activities.
My Discussion:
I have to admit having real trouble with the ideas here. The main issue the authors seem to be trying to solve is making it easy for devices to publish their data on the network within a system that builds on the current work in HTTP. Their approach to creating a special header for a client so that the server can tailor a data-input form to the mobile device is novel, and making the client fill in the thus tailored form, and even submit it when appropriate, automatically makes sense when put on top of that. But technically the solution ends up reading like some sort of hack, breaking standards, as they readily admit, and requiring inventing MIME types. Furthermore, it uses the very advanced and useful system of XForms (currently still a W3C recommendation), which means the authors are open to using advanced web-standards, but nary a mention of XML / SOAP, which a) covers machine to machine communication, even with UIs for human intervention b) has far stronger industry support c) is standardized and d) would not require breaking current or extending new standards. No discussions on network speed and reliability, and how those would influence any presented UI or interactions.
Adaptive interfaces for ubiquitous web access
John Barton Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Tim Kindberg Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Hui Dai Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Nissanka B. Priyantha Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
Fahd Al-bin-ali Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA
International World Wide Web Conference
Proceedings of the twelfth international conference on World Wide Web table of contents
Budapest, Hungary
SESSION: Mobility & wireless access
Pages: 80 - 89
Year of Publication: 2003
ISBN:1-58113-680-3
Abstract
This paper describes methods for service selection and service access for mobile, sensor-enhanced web clients such as wireless cameras or wireless PDAs with sensor devices attached. The clients announce their data-creating capabilities in "Produce" headers sent to servers; servers respond with forms that match these capabilities. Clients fill in these forms with sensor data as well as text or file data. The resultant system enables clients to access dynamically discovered services spontaneously, as their users engage in everyday nomadic activities.
My Discussion:
I have to admit having real trouble with the ideas here. The main issue the authors seem to be trying to solve is making it easy for devices to publish their data on the network within a system that builds on the current work in HTTP. Their approach to creating a special header for a client so that the server can tailor a data-input form to the mobile device is novel, and making the client fill in the thus tailored form, and even submit it when appropriate, automatically makes sense when put on top of that. But technically the solution ends up reading like some sort of hack, breaking standards, as they readily admit, and requiring inventing MIME types. Furthermore, it uses the very advanced and useful system of XForms (currently still a W3C recommendation), which means the authors are open to using advanced web-standards, but nary a mention of XML / SOAP, which a) covers machine to machine communication, even with UIs for human intervention b) has far stronger industry support c) is standardized and d) would not require breaking current or extending new standards. No discussions on network speed and reliability, and how those would influence any presented UI or interactions.
Link
Daniel Billsus AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Clifford A. Brunk AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Craig Evans AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Brian Gladish AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Michael Pazzani AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA and University of California, Irvine
Communications of the ACM archive
Volume 45 , Issue 5 (May 2002)
The Adaptive Web
SPECIAL ISSUE: The adaptive web
Pages: 34 - 38
Year of Publication: 2002
ISSN:0001-0782
Excerpt of Introduction: [...]Consumers and businesses have access to vast stores of information. All this information, however, used to be accessible only while users were tethered to a computer at home or in an office. Wireless data and voice access to this vast store allows unprecedented access to information from any location at any time.
The presentation of this information must be tailored to the constraints of mobile devices [3]. Although browsing and searching are the acceptable methods of locating information on the wired Web, those operations soon become cumbersome and inefficient in the wireless setting and nearly impossible in voice interfaces. Small screens, slower connections, high latency, limited input capabilities, and the serial nature of voice interfaces present new challenges. Agents that select information for the user [9] are a convenience when displaying information on a 19-inch desktop monitor accessed over a broadband connection; they are essential on a handheld wireless device. To give one real-world example, the Los Angeles Times Web site contains approximately 1,000 current news articles at any point in time, 10,000 local restaurant listings, and 100,000 classified advertisements, whereas somewhere between three and nine headlines, restaurant names, or summaries fit on the screen of a wireless device. Adaptive personalization technology that makes all of this information available to the mobile user is discussed here. The goal of adaptive personalization is to increase the usage and acceptance of mobile access through content that is easily accessible and personally relevant.
My Discussion:
This paper takes all the problems of mobile connected User Interfaces seriously. The resulting paradigm for presenting information is still very browsing oriented, but that is not surprising for a system that tries to tailor the website of the Los Angelese Times to a mobile format. The paper first makes a case for adaption of content to the mobile screen, and then for automated adaptation since having the user input what the user wants is actually difficult on a mboile device or complicated on a large device. The authors do not want to have the user have to hold a meta-conversation with the site about what the user wants to read, but wants the user's browsing behavior to be that meta conversation, and have the site tailor itself to what the user might want with every key-click. There's no explicit modelling of the user, all the refernces are to mathematical techniques like bayesian and collaborative methods, while keeping in mind the facts that user's tastes change, and that users should not be completly locked in to what the computer thinks their niche is, i.e. always make it easy to go back to general content. The paper finishes with how the browsing experience is changed for the better on several fronts, but have only data about the news portal to indicate the adaptation to the user was perceived as beneficial.
Daniel Billsus AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Clifford A. Brunk AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Craig Evans AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Brian Gladish AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA
Michael Pazzani AdaptiveInfo in Irvine, CA and University of California, Irvine
Communications of the ACM archive
Volume 45 , Issue 5 (May 2002)
The Adaptive Web
SPECIAL ISSUE: The adaptive web
Pages: 34 - 38
Year of Publication: 2002
ISSN:0001-0782
Excerpt of Introduction: [...]Consumers and businesses have access to vast stores of information. All this information, however, used to be accessible only while users were tethered to a computer at home or in an office. Wireless data and voice access to this vast store allows unprecedented access to information from any location at any time.
The presentation of this information must be tailored to the constraints of mobile devices [3]. Although browsing and searching are the acceptable methods of locating information on the wired Web, those operations soon become cumbersome and inefficient in the wireless setting and nearly impossible in voice interfaces. Small screens, slower connections, high latency, limited input capabilities, and the serial nature of voice interfaces present new challenges. Agents that select information for the user [9] are a convenience when displaying information on a 19-inch desktop monitor accessed over a broadband connection; they are essential on a handheld wireless device. To give one real-world example, the Los Angeles Times Web site contains approximately 1,000 current news articles at any point in time, 10,000 local restaurant listings, and 100,000 classified advertisements, whereas somewhere between three and nine headlines, restaurant names, or summaries fit on the screen of a wireless device. Adaptive personalization technology that makes all of this information available to the mobile user is discussed here. The goal of adaptive personalization is to increase the usage and acceptance of mobile access through content that is easily accessible and personally relevant.
My Discussion:
This paper takes all the problems of mobile connected User Interfaces seriously. The resulting paradigm for presenting information is still very browsing oriented, but that is not surprising for a system that tries to tailor the website of the Los Angelese Times to a mobile format. The paper first makes a case for adaption of content to the mobile screen, and then for automated adaptation since having the user input what the user wants is actually difficult on a mboile device or complicated on a large device. The authors do not want to have the user have to hold a meta-conversation with the site about what the user wants to read, but wants the user's browsing behavior to be that meta conversation, and have the site tailor itself to what the user might want with every key-click. There's no explicit modelling of the user, all the refernces are to mathematical techniques like bayesian and collaborative methods, while keeping in mind the facts that user's tastes change, and that users should not be completly locked in to what the computer thinks their niche is, i.e. always make it easy to go back to general content. The paper finishes with how the browsing experience is changed for the better on several fronts, but have only data about the news portal to indicate the adaptation to the user was perceived as beneficial.
