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A Consistency Tool for User Interface Development

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Army
Contract: W15P7T-11-C-H215
Agency Tracking Number: A102-095-0381
Amount: $119,857.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: A10-095
Solicitation Number: 2010.2
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2010
Award Year: 2010
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2010-11-18
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2011-05-18
Small Business Information
421 SW Sixth Suite 300
Portland, OR 97204
United States
DUNS: 098009918
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Eugene Rogan Creswick
 Principal Investigator
 (503) 808-7195
 creswick@galois.com
Business Contact
 Anne McClaran
Title: Contracts Administrator
Phone: (503) 808-7203
Email: anne@galois.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Ensuring User Interface consistency is extremely difficult---manual review and developer coordination is required to achieve uniform interaction metaphors across operating systems, web browsers, applications, and disparate devices. This is complicated by the capabilities of various UI toolkits and specific devices, as well as the development choices of the application programmers. We propose a workflow that uses a Domain-Specific Language (termed the Semantic User Interface Markup, or SUIM) to represent user interface guidelines to produce executable code. This DSL is a wide-spectrum language: it can serve as a non-executable specification language for capturing the generic constraints of User Interface Guidelines; and yet it is also able to specify detailed screen descriptions and user interactions which can be directly translated into code. Portions of the user interfaces that are not defined by a 'specification' can be either refined by the DSL (by further additions to the specification) or left open, to be implemented by user code. Our design provides organizations with the ability to specify and distribute UI guidelines that can be integrated directly into the application development workflow, providing an unprecedented level of application consistency without restricting the programmer's development environment.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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