2012-02-10 AUI workshop

• Minutes MBUIWG on AUI workshop (morning 10/02/2012)

• List of Participants: Ran Zhang, Moritz Kuemmerling, Marc Seissler, Kai Breiner, Jaroslav Pullmann (Fraunhofer FIT), François Beuvens, Davide Spano, Javier Rodriguez, Nikolaos Kaklanis, Annerose Braune, Dave Raggett, Marius Orfgen
• Remote Participants: Gaelle Calvary, Ignacio Marin, Cristina Gonzalez, Jan Van den Bergh, Sebastian Feuerstack

• First round on the different features for each language and how they address the AUI
  • UseML
    • Core component = Dialog, Structure, Behavior
    • Behavior is event-based
    • Structure parts may be overwritten by other parts
    • Navigation aspects are very important (relative or absolute)
    • Static and dynamic concerns are well separated with Structure and Behavior entities
    • Two parts in the comparison table: for the structure (static part) and for the behavior (dynamic part)
    • Example: ComboBox (at CUI) would be abstracted in a Select
    • All the different parameters (Container, Input, Output, Change, Select and Trigger) should be considered in the comparison table
    • The categories of structures remain simple >< in UsiXML many specifications are defined like Rating refining a Select
    • Discussion about how to model input/output as a single entity or by grouping input and output
    • Expression of external data is not defined
    • Importance of a link to an external system, or external data source --> concept of "data binding"
    • Restructure allows restructure elements from the structure. e.g. adding a new element at runtime -> may be viewed as a kind of adaptation rule
    • For adaptation we should consider Restructure concept
    • In ECA rule, one particular type of action could be restructure
    • Reusable behavior: a rule is defined one time and may be reused afterwards
    • Importance of constraint expressivity: see XForms and Taxonomy of integrity constraints
    • At what level should be expressed the constraints?
    • Distinction between domain-oriented constraints and domain-independent constraints
    • Access rights, security-based mechanisms
    • Definition of these concepts could be realized by roles and rights on these roles
    • Security access should remain optional, we can't enforce model the entire world!
    • Importance of providing access points in the model to plug other parts like adaptation
    • How to combine different features such as navigation/operation?
  • IdealXML
    • Focused on CUI
    • No specific requirements
    • In the table, we could have AUI elements first, but CUI elements too in order to get the correspondence (adding a new column)
  • CUI DSL of University of Dresden
    • Add another column to CUI to have the correspondence with AUI (as for IdealXML)
  • MariaXML
    • Behavior part has 2 levels: dialog and event handlers
    • Expression of the dialog in a global way and in a local way
    • Data Model is expressed through .xsd definition -> allows to communicate with external data source
    • Categorization of groups
    • Composite Description describes content as images, videos, … -> distinction from interactors
    • How do we express the distinction between interactive parts and non-interactive parts?
    • Importance of the simplicity of the language, trying not to lose usability
    • Events coming from users
    • .xsd expressivity may be limited at some point

• Discussions with remote participants
  • Inputs from Sebastian Feuerstack
    • How do we clearly define the Dialog at AUI regarding the CUI
    • May Dialog be viewed as the Behavior? Are they related concepts?
    • How to express the Distribution at abstract level
    • How do we express local dialog vs global dialog?
    • How to address the minimal requirements for the dialog depending on the modality? What is the default behavior?
  • General discussions
    • What are the possible paths according the Cameleon Reference Framework (e.g. one task to many auis, reflection, etc.)
    • Concepts should be first defined and then discussed how to use them afterwards
    • Concept of containers that can be split (very useful for adaptation to different screen sizes as mobile, tablets, desktop, etc.)
    • Concept of goals expressing how elaborated should be a UI depending on the constraints (e.g. size constraints)
    • We should add in the comparison table a CUI with modality different from graphical
  • Inputs from Jan Van den Bergh
    • splitability of containers
    • domain-oriented dependencies
    • use of UML stereotypes
    • Multi-types approach: instead of hierarchies of types, we work on a partition of types
    • Canonical prototypes (Q. Limburg)
    • Delegating as much as possible specific attributes
    • Extensibilty of the template approach, for redefinition of common parts
  • Inputs from Gaelle Calvary
    • How do we capture exceptional scenarios, especially depending on error
    • How to support the CARE properties (especially if we target multi-context)
    • How to group things and what kind of grouping (semantically, …) e.g., tasks oriented, or based on common factors
  • Inputs from Ignacio Marin
    • The link with use cases is very important
    • The use cases can useful for 2 things: to know what we want to achieve, but also to limit our expressivity