icsea 2007 - environment for ui evolution

Software Environment for Research on Evolving User Interfaces

Juan Quiroz, Anil Shankar, Sergiu M. Dascalu, Sushil J. Louis

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

University of Nevada, Reno

USA

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Outline

• Motivation

• Background

• Evolution environment

• Improving research productivity

• Transitioning from research to end-user tool

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Motivation

• User interface design is a complex, expensive, time consuming process

• Iterative process

• Users and contexts of use are numerous

• Streamline and improve UI design

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IGA for UI Evolution

• IGA to explore the space of UIs– Creativity and insight

• Evolution is guided by both the user preferences and coded guideline metrics

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Genetic Algorithms

• Population based search technique– Natural selection– Survival of the fittest

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Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGAs)

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Implementation Details

• Python

• GUI – wxPython

• Target language – XUL

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XUL User Interfaces

• XML User Interface Language

• Mark-up language for UIs– Buttons, textboxes, sliders

menubars, toolbars

• <button label=“Hello World” />

Poor XUL rendering support in python

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Investing Time on Development

vs.

Research Experimentation

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Research Environment Improvements

• wxPython integration

• Experiment runs manager

• Data manager

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wxPython Integration

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Experiment Runs Manager

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Data Manager

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Future Productivity Improvements

• GUI definition in wxGlade or NetBeans

• Integration of user interface definition in the environment

• Higher level user interface specification

• Code generation

• User interface editing

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Transitioning from Research to End-User Tool

• Users– Researchers– UI designers

• Environment Modes– End-user mode– Researcher mode

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User Modes

• End-user mode– Minimalist interface– Reduce technical jargon

• “Variety”• “Creativity”

– Subset of functionality of researcher mode

• Researcher mode– Advanced configuration

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Use CaseEnd-User Mode

Researcher Mode

1 Define user interface √ √

2 Load user interface definition √

3 Customize high level IGA details √ √

4 Customize low level IGA details √

5 Start IGA √ √

6 Stop IGA √ √

7 Open IGA state √ √

8 Save IGA state √ √

9 Select best and worst UI √ √

10 Undo evolution step √ √

11 Redo evolution step √ √

12 Edit evolved UI √ √

13 Run batch mode √

14 Extended help √

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Summary

• UI evolution

• Investing time on environment development– Improves productivity– Less error prone– Reduces tedious tasks

• Transition from end-user to research tool

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Questions?

• www.cse.unr.edu/~quiroz

• quiroz@cse.unr.edu