The Myth of the Separable Dialogue: Software Engineering vs. User Models

Conceptual models of user interfaces and object-oriented models of interactive systems appear to be incompatible as regards the concept of dialogue. A case study reveals that the structure of components identified according to these two perspectives cannot be brought into proper correspondence. Hence, traditional UIMSs must be considered unable to provide separable, reusable abstract data types for the dialogue. Conclusions are drawn concerning the architecture of UIMS systems.