A Pattern-based Approach To Transformation Of User Interface Models And Its Implementation

The increasing number of interactive applications and the differences in their platforms and devices have brought new challenges to user interface designers: First,for the same application,it is necessary to meet the different input and output capabilities of each device and improve the efficiency of UI development;Second,when end-users access the UI that adapted to different devices,they need to ensure consistent high usability and user experience.Traditionally,the model-based user interface development(MBUID)method uses models to describe interfaces at different levels of abstraction,attempt to "Write Once Run Anywhere".Unfortunately,when the device-independent abstract model is directly transformed into the device-specific model,the usability characteristics of the user interface cannot be considered,though the mapping of functional characteristics is implemented.The user interface design pattern widely adopted by the industry today is a summary of past good interface design experience,and it encapsulates a design solution that focuses on usability and accessibility.It aims to transform design requirements into a usable design with both functionality and usability.The interface pattern usually captures the invariant attributes of the design strategy at a certain level of abstraction,thus providing a design strategy that can be reused.However,the interface patterns applied to manual development usually adopt informal expressions such as natural language,charts,etc.Therefore,it is difficult to apply(semi-)automatic generation of interfaces.In view of the above problems,this thesis combines the MBUID method with the interface design pattern,and propose a pattern-based user interface design model transformation approach PBDMTA.PBDMTA introduces a middle representation layer composed of abstract patterns between the abstract model layer and the concrete model layer,and proposes a "two-step" model transformation strategy.The parameterized middle representation reflects its device independence while adding usability information through the pattern in the model.The abstract patterns finally construct the concrete model in the form of building blocks through the process of mapping,instantiation and integration.In order to describe the pattern and provide formal markup language,this thesis proposes a pattern-based user interface markup language PBUIML,and provides(semi-)automated model transformation tool for the UI development process.At last,a case study is presented to verify that PBDMTA not only improves the usability of the interface,but also improves the efficiency of the development through the reuse of best design practices.