[ont.events] UW Computer Graphics Seminar, Prof. Shaw on "Specification and Generation of User Interfaces"

mwang@watmath.UUCP (mwang) (04/01/85)

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
SEMINAR ACTIVITIES

COMPUTER GRAPHICS SEMINAR

                    - Thursday, April 11, 1985.

Prof.  A.  Shaw  of  the  University of Washington will
speak  on ``Specification and Generation of User Inter-
faces''.

TIME:                3:30 PM

ROOM:              MC 5158

ABSTRACT

Some  of  the  most interesting features of current and
predicted    human-machine   interfaces   include   the
widespread  use  of  high  precision  raster  graphics,
increased    concurrency,   interleaving   of   command
languages  for  each of the objects that are simultane-
ously  active, and interacting through familiar working
paradigms,  such  as desktop models and templates.  Our
research  efforts, which emphasize these features, have
three  related goals.  The first is to produce a satis-
factory  model  and  definition  of the constituents of
interfaces  that  is  both  independent of applications
programs  and  also  independent  of  particular input-
output  device drivers.  The second part of our work is
to  design  formal  specification methods for interface
objects  and  their ``command'' languages.  Lastly, our
aim  is to develop techniques for the automatic genera-
tion  of  user  interfaces, especially fast prototyping
using our specification methods.

The talk will concentrate on some of our recent work on
specifications,  which  has language and object defini-
tion  components.   Our  methods are based first on the
use  of  flow  expressions  (a universal notation which
extends regular expressions with operators for denoting
and  controlling interleaving) for describing languages
at  both the human and applications program interfaces.
Second,  we  use  axiomatic  algebraic descriptions for
defining  the objects of the interface.  A careful com-
bination  of  the two provides a complete specification
scheme for user interfaces.