Using a WWW Browser as an Alternative User Interface for Interactive Applications

Frank Lonczewski, Institute of Computer Science, Munich University of Technology, 80290 Munich, Germany

lonczews@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
http://www2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/persons/lonczews/fralo.html

Keywords:: Intelligent User Interfaces, User Guidance, Model-Based Interface Design, Online Help Systems

1. Introduction

In the project "Generierung intelligenter Bedienoberflächen" (GIB [1]) we use a WWW browser as an online help system to guide the user during his work with various interactive applications. While an application is running a user guidance component generates help pages on the fly describing operations the user can actually perform on the user interface. As these operations can be called directly from the browser, it can be regarded as an alternative user interface of the application. First experiences have shown that especially the unexperienced user prefers to use the WWW-based user interface because additional information and orientation help is available there.

2. Generating User Interfaces: A Model-Based Approach

In our project we investigate how the time-consuming development process for the construction of user interfaces can be reduced by generating it automatically out of a declarative description (model) of the properties of an interactive application. Some advantages of this model-based approach [Fol91, Sze92, Jan93, Suk93, Bod93, Bal93, Sch94] are:

by using alternative layout guidelines formulated on basis of a styleguide [OSF91, SUN89], different user interfaces can be constructed without modifying the description of the application
the styleguide-confirmity of the set of user interfaces that can be generated is ensured
with a description of the tasks that the user can solve with the interactive application, a user guidance component can be generated automatically by analyzing the model and the tasks of the application

3. A User-Guidance Component: PLUG-IN

The user guidance component supports the user while working with the application by determining the current tasks of the user. If a task is recognized, a way is searched to solve it, and if such a way can be found, the user guidance component can help the user by:

generating dynamical textual online help that describes how the given task can be accomplished
generating an animation sequence that simulates the necessary user interactions to accomplish the given task

PLUG-IN (PLan based User Guidance for Intelligent Navigation) is a user guidance component that is based on the above described method. In contrast to other approaches to user guidance [Mor94, Feh93, Thi94], PLUG-IN generates dynamical online help pages in HTML format that can be inspected with a WWW browser. Each page is typically divided into four regions and contains:

information about the current state of the application from the user's point of view
information about the set of possible actions the user can perform in the current state
for each of the possible actions: information about the necessary user interactions to perform the action. If the user selects the button with the light bulb icon beneath the displayed text (see example below), PLUG-IN simulates the described interactions on the user interface with an animation sequence and generates a new online help page afterwards
information about further documention material, e.g. references to a hypertext version of the user manual of the application

As all operations the user can perform on the original user interface can also be triggered through the WWW browser, it can be regarded as an alternative user interface of the application. In contrast to the original user interface the goal of the WWW-based user interface is to guide the user during the work with the application. The information displayed helps the user to accomplish a given task. Furthermore, the user can learn how to interact with the original user interface through the means of the simulation capabilities of PLUG-IN.

4. An Example: The User Interface of an ISDN Telephone

In our presentation we look at the user interface of an ISDN telephone [Sie92] generated with our model-based BOSS-system [Sch94] (figure 1). Depending on the state of the application, PLUG-IN generates different online help pages. One of these is displayed in figure 2. We show how the user solves a complex task (e.g. establishes a conference with the phone) while only working with the generated online help pages. Starting with the user interface state shown in figure 1, the user would select the following action sequence on the dynamical help pages: start a phone conversation, dial a telephone number, start an inquiry, dial another telephone number, start a conference. After the corresponding user interactions are simulated on the user interface a conference is established.

figure 1 figure 2

[1]: This work is supported by Siemens Corporate Research and Development, Department of Systems Ergonomics and Interaction (ZFE ST SN 51), Munich, Germany. The translation of GIB in English is "Generation of Intelligent User Interfaces".

References

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