Development of model-based User Interfaces with XML technology

Abstract

In the development of multi-platform applications, one of the most challenging activities is the creation of user interfaces (UIs). Prototyping cross-platform UIs require a mixture of creative and programming skills, as well as solid specific domain and device familiarity. Moreover, firm knowledge of a multitude of implementation languages and frameworks, often limited to only a small range of platforms and devices, is required. Model-based user interface development offers a solution that supports multi-platform development and promises to reduce developer's effort and time spent for UI prototyping. This paper provides an approach for model- based user interface development using XML technologies. The approach involves the use of a XML-based user interface description language, combined with extensible stylesheet language transformations for model-to-model and model-to-code transformations. Our main target is XForms, and we intend to use as many XML technologies as possible during the development lifecycle of the graphical user interfaces. In addition, we present a Graphical User Interface (GUI) editor called `uimlBuddy' which encapsulates the approach and facilitates end user development for non-programming professionals.