The User Interfaces Transition Diagram-Editor: A Tool to Simplify User-System Interaction Modeling

The User Interface Transition Diagram (UITD) is a formal modeling notation that simplifies the specification and design of user-system interactions. It is a valuable communication tool for technical and non-technical stakeholders during the requirements elicitation phase, as it provides a simple yet technically complete notation that is easy to understand. In this paper, we investigated the efficiency of creating UITDs using draw.io, a widely used diagramming software, compared to a dedicated UITD editor. We conducted a study to compare the time required to use each tool to complete the task of creating a medium size UITD, as well as the subjective ease of use and satisfaction of participants with the dedicated Editor. Our results show that the UITD editor is more efficient and preferred by participants, highlighting the importance of using specialized tools for creating formal models such as UITDs. The findings of this study have implications for software developers, designers, and other stakeholders involved in the specification and design of user-system interactions.

Information visualization,physicality and intuitive use for tangible user interfaces

In the last two decades, tangible user interfaces （TUIs） have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with digital information. First, this paper exam- ines the existing body of work on tangible user interfaces and discusses their application domains, especially information visualiza- tion. Then it provides a definition of intuitive use and reviews formerly separated ideas on physicality. As interaction has an impact on the overall product experience, we also discuss whether intuitive use influences the users＇ aesthetic judgements of such products.

Generating native user interfaces for multiple devices by means of model transformation

In the last years, the types of devices used to access information systems have notably increased using different operating systems, screen sizes, interaction mechanisms, and software features. This device fragmentation is an important issue to tackle when developing native mobile service front-end applications. To address this issue,we propose the generation of native user interfaces(UIs) by means of model transformations, following the modelbased user interface(MBUI) paradigm. The resulting MBUI framework, called LIZARD, generates applications for multiple target platforms. LIZARD allows the definition of applications at a high level of abstraction, and applies model transformations to generate the target native UI considering the specific features of target platforms. The generated applications follow the UI design guidelines and the architectural and design patterns specified by the corresponding operating system manufacturer. The objective is not to generate generic applications following the lowest-common-denominator approach, but to follow the particular guidelines specified for each target device. We present an example application modeled in LIZARD, generating different UIs for Windows Phone and two types of Android devices(smartphones and tablets).

A graphical user interface(GUI)for model-based radiation-induced acoustic computed tomography

Radiation-induced acoustic computed tomography(RACT)is an evolving biomedical imaging modality that aims to reconstruct the radiation energy deposition in tissues.Traditional backprojection(BP)reconstructions carry noisy and limited-view artifacts.Model-based algorithms have been demonstrated to overcome the drawbacks of BPs.However,model-based algorithms are relatively more complex to develop and computationally demanding.Furthermore,while a plethora of novel algorithms has been developed over the past decade,most of these algorithms are either not accessible,readily available,or hard to implement for researchers who are not well versed in programming.We developed a user-friendly MATLAB-based graphical user interface(GUI;RACT2D)that facilitates back-projection and model-based image reconstructions for twodimensional RACT problems.We included numerical and experimental X-ray-induced acoustic datasets to demonstrate the capabilities of the GUI.The developed algorithms support parallel computing for evaluating reconstructions using the cores of the computer,thus further accelerating the reconstruction speed.We also share the MATLAB-based codes for evaluating RACT reconstructions,which users with MATLAB programming expertise can further modify to suit their needs.The shared GUI and codes can be of interest to researchers across the globe and assist them in e±cient evaluation of improved RACT reconstructions.

Prediction of corrosion rate for friction stir processed WE43 alloy by combining PSO-based virtual sample generation and machine learning

The corrosion rate is a crucial factor that impacts the longevity of materials in different applications.After undergoing friction stir processing(FSP),the refined grain structure leads to a notable decrease in corrosion rate.However,a better understanding of the correlation between the FSP process parameters and the corrosion rate is still lacking.The current study used machine learning to establish the relationship between the corrosion rate and FSP process parameters(rotational speed,traverse speed,and shoulder diameter)for WE43 alloy.The Taguchi L27 design of experiments was used for the experimental analysis.In addition,synthetic data was generated using particle swarm optimization for virtual sample generation(VSG).The application of VSG has led to an increase in the prediction accuracy of machine learning models.A sensitivity analysis was performed using Shapley Additive Explanations to determine the key factors affecting the corrosion rate.The shoulder diameter had a significant impact in comparison to the traverse speed.A graphical user interface(GUI)has been created to predict the corrosion rate using the identified factors.This study focuses on the WE43 alloy,but its findings can also be used to predict the corrosion rate of other magnesium alloys.

Formal Reduction of Interfaces to Large-scale Process Control Systems

A formal methodology is proposed to reduce the amount of information displayed to remote human operators at interfaces to large-scale process control plants of a certain type. The reduction proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, minimal reduced subsets of components, which give full information about the state of the whole system, are generated by determining functional dependencies between components. This is achieved by using a temporal logic proof obligation to check whether the state of all components can be inferred from the state of components in a subset in specified situations that the human operator needs to detect, with respect to a finite state machine model of the system and other human operator behavior. Generation of reduced subsets is automated with the help of a temporal logic model checker. The second stage determines the interconnections between components to be displayed in the reduced system so that the natural overall graphical structure of the system is maintained. A formal definition of an aesthetic for the required subgraph of a graph representation of the full system, containing the reduced subset of components, is given for this purpose. The methodology is demonstrated by a case study.

Leveraging React Components in Business Process Management (BPM) Applications

As organizations increasingly embrace digital transformation, the integration of modern web technologies like React.js with Business Process Management (BPM) applications has become essential. React components offer flexibility, reusability, and scalability, making them ideal for enhancing user interfaces and driving user engagement within BPM environments. This article explores the benefits, challenges, and best practices of leveraging React components in BPM applications, along with real-world examples of successful implementations.

Visualized User Interface for Decision Support System

To work efficiently with DSS, most users need assistance in representation conversion, i. e., translating the specific outcome from the DSS into the universal language of visual. In generally, it is much easier to understand the results from the DSS if they are translated into charts, maps, and other scientific displays, because visualization exploits human natural ability to recognize and understand visual pattern. In this paper we discuss the concept of visualization for DSS. AniGraftool, a software system, is introduced as an example of Visualized User Interface for DSS.

The Influence of a User-Centred Design Focus on the Effectiveness of a User Interface for an Agricultural Machine

As agricultural machines become more complex, it is increasingly critical that special attention be directed to the design of the user interface to ensure that the operator will have an adequate understanding of the status of the machine at all times. A user-centred design focus was employed to develop two conceptual designs (UCD1 & UCD2) for a user interface for an agricultural air seeder. The two concepts were compared against an existing user interface (baseline condition) using the metrics of situation awareness (Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique), mental workload (Integrated Workload Scale), reaction time, and subjective feedback. There were no statistically significant differences among the three user interfaces based on the metric of situation awareness;however, UCD2 was deemed to be significantly better than either UCD1 or the baseline interface on the basis of mental workload, reaction time and subjective feedback. The research has demonstrated that a user-centred design focus will generate a better user interface for an agricultural machine.

User Interface Development Based on Ontologies

The user interface is a central component of any mo de rn application program. It determines how well end users accept, learn, and effi ciently work with the application program. The user interface is very difficult to design, to implement, to modify. It takes approximately 70% of the time requ ired for designing an application program. All the existing tools for user interface design can be divided into two basic c ategories-Interface Builders and Model-based Interface development tools, whic h trace their roots from user interface management systems. Interface Builders a re the most widespread and excellent to create layouts and manipulate widgets. H owever, Interface Builders have the follow demerits. An interface designed using Interface Builders can contain hundreds of procedures. Interface Builders give us no possibility to develop different pieces of the same interface separately. They do not help us in managing user tasks and can be used only by programmers. Model-based interface development tools have attracted a high degree of interes t in last few years. The basic premise of model based technology is that the interface development can be fully supported by declarative models of all user interface characteristics such as their presen tation, dialogue, domain of application etc, and then the user interface develop ment can be centered around such models. The high potential of this technology has not been realized yet. This fact has the following reasons. The known interface models are partial representations of interfaces. They cannot be readily modified by developers, and are not publicly available to the HCI community. The central ingredient for success in model-ba sed systems is a declarative, complete, versatile interface model that can expre ss a wide variety of interface designs. Therefore tool developers have to avoid the following disadvantages of current interface models: inflexibility, system- dependence, and incompleteness. The main idea to achieve these model character istics mention above is to use ontologies. This broadened interest in ontologies is based on the fact that they provide ma chine-understandable representation of semantics for information, and a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be communicated between people and across application systems. Support in data, information, and knowledge exchang e becomes the key issue in current computer technology. At the moment we are on the brink of the second Web generation called Semantic Web or Knowledgeable Web. Given the increasing amount of information available on-line, this kind of sup port is becoming more important day by day. The main idea of the proposed approach is to replace interface models by appropr iate ontologies. Some parts of these ontologies will be available from the Inter net; the other parts will be built by developers. As a result of the Semantic We b development we will have increasing the number of ontologies formally describe d in the Internet. The terminology and content of these ontologies will be inter nationally standardized. Reusing these ontologies will bring down the cost of de velopment and improve the quality of user interface. The parts of a user interface model are-a domain ontology model, a dialog ontol ogy model, presentation ontology model, "business- logic" variable ontology mod el and correspondences between these parts. Thus, the user interface development based on ontologies is an evolution of th e model-based approach, where appropriate ontologies are used instead of models .

Design and Evaluation of a User Interface for an Autonomous Agricultural Sprayer

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a user interface for a remotely supervised autonomous agricultural sprayer. The interface was designed to help the remote supervisor to instruct the autonomous sprayer to commence operation, monitor the status of the sprayer and its operation in the field, and intervene when needed (i.e., to stop or shut down). Design principles and guidelines were carefully selected to help develop a human-centered automation interface. Evaluation of the interface using a combination of heuristic, cognitive walkthrough, and user testing techniques revealed several strengths of the design as well as areas that needed further improvement. Overall, this paper provides guidelines that will assist other researchers to develop an ergonomic user interface for a fully autonomous agricultural machine.

Context-Based Mobile User Interface

Context awareness is increasingly gaining applicability in interactive ubiquitous mobile computing systems. Each context-aware application has its own set of behaviors to react to context modifications. Hence, every software engineer needs to clearly understand the goal of the development and to categorize the context in the application. We incorporate context-based modifications into the appearance or the behavior of the interface, either at the design time or at the run time. In this paper, we present application behavior adaption to the context modification via a context-based user interface in a mobile application. We are interested in a context-based user interface in a mobile device that is automatically adapted based on the context information. We use the adaption tree, named in our methodology, to represent the adaption of mobile device user interface to various context information. The context includes the user’s domain information and dynamic environment changes. Each path in the adaption tree, from the root to the leaf, presents an adaption rule. An e-commerce application is chosen to illustrate our approach. This mobile application was developed based on the adaption tree in the Android platform. The automatic adaption to the context information has enhanced human-computer interactions.

Graphical User Interface for the Monitoring of CAN Frames by Means of a SoC Cyclone V

In this paper, the design of a Graphical User Interface for CAN data frame monitoring is presented. The GUI has been developed in the Qt Creator IDE. A touch screen for visualization and control is used, which in turn is controlled by a development board with a SoC Cyclone V, through which a Linux operating system is executed.

USER INTERFACE FOR COLOR SELECTION

The user-computer interface for color selection is of great significance for the use of colors in computer graphics, particularly in some fields where the used colors have to be selected carefully. This paper discusses what factors have to be considered to design an effective user interface for color selec- tion. It also presents a method which shows how to represent 3D color spaces according to the psychol- ogy of color perception. Two examples of user interface for color selection are given. One is based on the CLELUV uniform color space, the other is based on RGB-rotated color model.

Optimization of Interactive Videos Empowered the Experience of Learning Management System

The Learning management system(LMS)is now being used for uploading educational content in both distance and blended setups.LMS platform has two types of users:the educators who upload the content,and the students who have to access the content.The students,usually rely on text notes or books and video tutorials while their exams are conducted with formal methods.Formal assessments and examination criteria are ineffective with restricted learning space which makes the student tend only to read the educational contents and videos instead of interactive mode.The aim is to design an interactive LMS and examination video-based interface to cater the issues of educators and students.It is designed according to Human-computer interaction(HCI)principles to make the interactive User interface(UI)through User experience(UX).The interactive lectures in the form of annotated videos increase user engagement and improve the self-study context of users involved in LMS.The interface design defines how the design will interact with users and how the interface exchanges information.The findings show that interactive videos for LMS allow the users to have a more personalized learning experience by engaging in the educational content.The result shows a highly personalized learning experience due to the interactive video and quiz within the video.

Usability-Driven Mobile Application Development

Recently,a specific interest is being taken in the development of mobile application(app)via Model-Based User Interface Development(MBUID)approach.MBUID allows the generation of mobile apps in the target platform(s)from conceptual models.As such it simplified the development process of mobile app.However,the interest is only focused on the functional aspects of the mobile app while neglecting the non-functional aspects,such as usability.The latter is largely considered as the main factor leading to the success or failure of any software system.This paper aims at addressing non-functional aspects of mobile apps generated using MBUID approach.As such,we propose a usability-driven approach for the development of mobile apps.The main stages of the proposed approach are defined in a generic way so that they can be integrated with any MBUID method.A case study is presented,in the paper,with the aim of illustrating the feasibility of this approach.

An Educational GUI-Based Software for Dynamic Analysis of Framed Structural Models

This paper introduces a new version of the open-source educational software, LESM (Linear Elements Structure Model), developed in MATLAB for structural analysis of one-dimensional models such as frames, trusses, and grillages. The updated program includes dynamic analysis, which incorporates inertial and damping effects, time-dependent load conditions, and a transient solver with multiple time integration schemes. The software assumes small displacements and linear-elastic material behavior. The paper briefly explains the theoretical basis for these developments and the reorganization of the source code using Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). The updated Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows interactive use of dynamic analysis features and displays new results such as animations, envelope diagrams of internal forces, phase portraits, and the response of degrees-of-freedom in time and frequency domain. The new version was used in a structural dynamics course, and new assignments were elaborated to improve students’ understanding of the subject.

Study on the System Design of Multiple Expert Systems Integrated Decision Support System

There has been an increasing interest in integrating decision support systems (DSS) and expert systems (ES) to provide decision makers a more accessible, productive and domain-independent information and computing environment. This paper is aimed at designing a multiple expert systems integrated decision support system (MESIDSS) to enhance decision makers' ability in more complex cases. The basic framework, management system of multiple ESs, and functions of MESIDSS are presented. The applications of MESIDSS in large-scale decision making processes are discussed from the following aspects of problem decomposing, dynamic combination of multiple ESs, link of multiple bases and decision coordinating. Finally, a summary and some ideas for the future are presented.

Investigating the Use of Email Application in Illiterate and Semi-Illiterate Population

The use of electronic communication has been significantly increased over the last few decades.Email is one of the most well-known means of electronic communication.Traditional email applications are widely used by a large population;however,illiterate and semi-illiterate people face challenges in using them.A major population of Pakistan is illiterate that has little or no practice of computer usage.In this paper,we investigate the challenges of using email applications by illiterate and semi-illiterate people.In addition,we also propose a solution by developing an application tailored to the needs of illiterate/semi-illiterate people.Research shows that illiterate people are good at learning the designs that convey information with pictures instead of text-only,and focus more on one object/action at a time.Our proposed solution is based on designing user interfaces that consist of icons and vocal/audio instructions instead of text.Further,we use background voice/audio which is more helpful than flooding a picture with a lot of information.We tested our application using a large number of users with various skill levels(from no computer knowledge to experts).Our results of the usability tests indicate that the application can be used by illiterate people without any training or third-party’s help.

The FAIR Data Point:Interfaces and Tooling

While the FAIR Principles do not specify a technical solution for'FAIRness',it was clear from the outset of the FAIR initiative that it would be useful to have commodity software and tooling that would simplify the creation of FAIR-compliant resources.The FAIR Data Point is a metadata repository that follows the DCAT(2)schema,and utilizes the Linked Data Platform to manage the hierarchical metadata layers as LDP Containers.There has been a recent flurry of development activity around the FAIR Data Point that has significantly improved its power and ease-of-use.Here we describe five specific tools—an installer,a loader,two Webbased interfaces,and an indexer-aimed at maximizing the uptake and utility of the FAIR Data Point.