An intelligent editor for multi-presentation user interfaces

In ubiquitous computing, interactive applications are shipped with different variations of its user interface depending on the constraints imposed by the context in which they are running, such as the user, the computing platform and environment. A multi-presentation user interface is composed of a series of interconnected user interfaces for the same task to be carried out in different contexts of use. When access to software applications must be guaranteed in more than one context of use, it is necessary to automatically adapt the interface in order to preserve their usability when context switching occurs, for instance, a switch from a desktop to a pocket computer. To achieve this goal, this paper proposes a model and a visualization technique to express and manipulate the plasticity domains of a multi-presentation user interface. The plasticity domain denotes the set of contexts of use it is able to cover while preserving its usability. This paper focuses primarily on one aspect of the context of use: the computing platform and its screen size: when the dimensions of a graphical user interface change, the multi-presentation interface automatically switches to the presentation which is the most adapted to this screen. The model supports the definition of this plasticity domain in terms of window size and location. The visualization technique helps in both making observable the set of presentations that fit the available space, and perceiving which operations could help in switching from one presentation to another one. The model has been integrated into a user interface description language and is supported by an intelligent editor, because it infers from plasticity domains all the constraints and conditions required for context switching.