Formal Specification of User Interfaces

Sunday, May 7 and Monday Morning, May 8

As user interfaces become more complex, it becomes more important to communicate the look and functionality of the interface among the interface designers, developers, users, and customers. This communication of the user interface is done through a specification. Often interface designers use informal or ad hoc techniques for defining the interface, which are incomplete or ambiguous, causing developers, users, and customers to interpret the specifications differently.

For non-user interface software there are many common specification techniques: entity relation diagrams for modeling data, structure charts for functional decomposition, and several object-oriented specification techniques for describing class hierarchy and communication. There are also many formal techniques available for specifying graphical user interfaces, though in practice these techniques are rarely used. The result is develop- ment of user interfaces that are different than what was intended by the designer or customer and higher costs for detection and correction of usability problems.

This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss issues and problems surrounding current specification techniques, successes and failures in specification projects, how current techniques could be improved, and areas where current research should be focusing. Through this workshop, we hope to develop better techniques for specifying user interfaces.

This one-and-a-half day workshop is limited to 15 participants.

Contact:

Chris Rouff
NASA GSFC, Code 522.1
Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
E-mail: chris.rouff@gsfc.nasa.gov
Tel: +1 301 286 2938
Fax: +1 301 286 1768