Expression of interest in participating in the Workshop

Patrick Girard, Sybille Caffiau
LISI, ENSMA, Poitiers, France
Dominique Scapin
INRIA, Rocquencourt, France

The three authors of this proposal have a strong background in topics that are include in the Workshop topics. Patrick Girard would be able to attend the Workshop.

Dominique Scapin is a senior researcher at INRIA, France. He has a long history in task models. He has designed the MAD model, which is a well-accepted model for task analysis. It has been used in many academic and industrial environments using a method for task information gathering which consists mainly of semi-directed interviews based on the “Why?” /“How?” technique. (such as: house automation, ship emergency fire management, air traffic control, railway regulation, administrative procedures, etc.). Enhancements of this model have been proposed, with a first tool, ALACIE. More recently, a new model has been designed, aiming at being a common kernel for task models, K-MAD, and a tool, K-MADe, has been implemented. This tool provides for editing and simulating task models, including the management of objects and conditions, which enhances greatly the expressive power of task models. Designed as a kernel, the K-MAD model is open, and add-ons can be freely developed.

Patrick Girard is Professor in Poitiers, France. He has been working for years in model-based systems, focusing on the dialogue model, which is part of the Abstract User Interface layer (AUI) in the Cameleon framework. Different models have been designed and implemented, and the articulation between formal methods, task models and dialogue models, has been studied through projects such as GIPSE, GenBuild and SUIDT.

Sybille Caffiau has prepared a PhD with Patrick Girard and Dominique Scapin, and defended her thesis on December 2009. She has worked on the definition of a link between task models and dialogue models, within a model-driven engineering approach. She proposes equivalence rules between these two models, and she has defined a method based on model-driven concepts to co-develop task models and dialogue models. This method was presented at the CHI workshop MDDAUI, on 10th of April. Also, the current model and tool have been empirically tested in terms of concept and procedure learning, as well as usability.

Author’s View Point

We believe that, with our multidisciplinary approach, we can help in finding right solutions for standardization of some models from model-based and model driven approaches.

Concrete example

The main ideas may be found in the last papers we published. We can propose and discuss the basis for a standard structure for two models that are very important in model-driven approaches for user interfaces. For example, we can discuss the importance of introducing objects and computable expressions in the description of task models. Effectively, we think that, to be used in industrial context, tools must be reliable, and propose valued services to users. Simulation tools, as we can find in CTTE or K-MADe, are interesting for that. Increasing their expressive power preserving the calculability is one challenge. We also have designed some “toy examples”, that might be considered for concretizing the discussion during the workshop.

Short Bibliography related to the subject of the workshop

  1. Patry, G. and P. Girard. GIPSE: a Model-Based System for CAD. in Third Conference on Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces (CADUI'99). 1999. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique: Kluwer Academics. p. 61-72.
  2. Patry, G. and P. Girard. End-User Programming in a Structured Dialogue Environment: the GIPSE Project. in 2001 IEEE Symposia on Human-Centric Computing Languages and Environments. 2001. Stresa, Italy: Entergraphica. p. 212-219.
  3. Baron, M. and P. Girard. SUIDT : A task model based GUI-Builder. in TAMODIA : Task MOdels and DIAgrams for user interface design. 2002. Romania, Bucharest: Inforec Printing House. p. 64-71.
  4. Baron, M. and P. Girard. SUIDT : Safe User Interface Design Tool (Demo). in International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces. 2004. Madeira, Portugal: ACM Press. p. 350-351.
  5. Caffiau, S., et al. Generating Interactive Applications from Task Models: a Hard Challenge. in TAsk MOdels and DIAgrams (TAMODIA). 2007. Toulouse, France: Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. p. 267-272.
  6. Caffiau, S., et al. Assessment of Object Use for Task Modeling. in Engineering Interactive Systems (HCSE 2008 and TAMODIA 2008). 2008. Pisa, Italy: Springer (LNCS 5247). p. 14-28.
  7. Caffiau, S., et al., Hierarchical Structure: A Step for Jointly Designing Interactive Software Dialog and Task Model, in Human-Computer Interaction. Novel Interaction Methods and Techniques, Springer, Editor. 2009, Springer: Berlin. p. 664-673.
  8. Caffiau, S., et al., Increasing the expressive power of task analysis: systematic comparison and empirical assessment of tool-supported task models. Interacting with Computers, 2010, in press.

All available (except the last one) on www.lisi.ensma.fr. Link for K-MADe : http://kmade.sourceforge.net/