TOWARDS A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO SPECIFYING USER INTERFACE DESIGN

Publisher Summary There is a need for coherent methodologies for designing user interfaces. Foley and Van Dam have defined a four-stage methodology that provides a framework for making some design decisions. Others have produced modified versions of this methodology in an attempt to address its shortcomings. Research literature shows that effort is being focused on various aspects of design. This chapter discusses some of the interface design issues that are being faced on the Open University's Syntactic Graphics Project. Open University Syntactic Graphics Project is concerned with the development of an environment that software engineering projects can use to quickly generate ad hoc tools that manipulate and interpret software life cycle notations. A system, called GRANOT, which will fulfill various requirements, is currently under development. GRANOT is based on the TOOLBUILD prototype that processes textual documents containing syntactically correct notations. It integrates the functional components of TOOLBUILD. It also extends the range of processable documents to include the structured graphical notations used in software engineering. Unlike some systems, GRANOT is not hardwired. It is amenable to change by the developer to include new notations and modifications to existing notations.