What's New

1. [Jan 05] Home page posted. The textbook may be obtained from the Engineering Copy Center, EGR 203. The extra readings will be available starting Jan 06.

Instructor

• Professor Richard N. Taylor
  • Electronic Mail: taylor@ics.uci.edu
  • Office: ICS2-203
  • Office Phone: (714) 824-6429
  • Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30 - 4:30 Please make appointments by email, however, in order to guarantee the meeting.
• Fax: (714) 824-1715
• Mailing Address:
  Department of Information and Computer Science,
  University of California, Irvine
  Irvine, California 92697-3425

Overview, Prerequisites, and Frequently Asked Questions

UCI Catalog Description:

Exploration of current developments in systems and tools for creation and run-time management of graphical user interfaces. Object specification, constraint specification and maintenance, control paradigms, separation of concerns, support infrastructures, and multi-media issues are also discussed.

Themes: UI implementation, software architectures, and composition technologies.

Textbook and Readings

• Textbook: "Introduction to User Interface Software", by Dan R. Olsen, Jr. (Publisher uncertain, but probably Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.) Copies available in the Engineering Copy Center (203 EGR).
• (Very) Optional textbook: "User Interface Management Systems", by Dan R. Olsen, Jr. Morgan Kaufmann, 1992.
• Readings:
  • "Introduction to the workshop on software engineering and human-computer interaction: Joint research issues" Joelle Coutaz and R.N. Taylor, in "Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction", Lecture Notes in Computer Science 896, May 1994. Pages 1-3.
  • "User interface technology and software engineering environments" R.N. Taylor, in "Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction", Lecture Notes in Computer Science 896, May 1994. Pages 113-126.
  • "Emergence of the separable user interface", Ernest Edmonds. ICL Technical Journal, 7(1):54-63 (1990).
  • (Optional) "The X Window System." Robert W. Scheifler and Jim Gettys. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 5(2):79-109 (April 1986).
  • "A cookbook for using the model-view-controller paradigm in Smalltalk-80." Glenn E. Krasner and Stephen T. Pope. Journal of Object-Oriented Programming, 1(3):26-49, August/September 1988.
  • "Declarative interface models for user interface construction tools: the Mastermind approach", P. Szekely, P. Sukaviriya, et.al.
  • "Chiron-1: A software architecture for user interface development, maintenance, and run-time support." Richard N. Taylor, Kari A. Nies, Gregory Alan Bolcer, Craig A. MacFarlane, Kenneth M. Anderson, and Gregory F. Johnson. ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(2):105-144 (June 1995).
  • "A Metamodel for the runtime architecture of an interactive system." The UIMS Tool Developers Workshop. SIGCHI Bulletin, 24(1):32-37 (January 1992).
  • "A component and message-based architectural style for GUI software." Richard N. Taylor, Nenad Medvidovic, Kenneth M. Anderson, E. James Whitehead, Jr., Jason E. Robbins, Kari A. Nies, Peyman Oreizy, and Deborah L. Dubrow. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 22(6):390-406 (June, 1996.)
  • "From single-user architectural design to PAC: a generic software architecture model for CSCW", G. Calvary, J. Coutaz, and L. Nigay. CHI'97, pp. 242-249.
  • "Development Tools," Brad Myers?
  • There will also be about 4 additional papers from the latest UIST conference...

Assignments and Assessment

Name	Assignment	Weight
Comparative toolkits	Update the provided comparison matrix with 3 or 4 columns based on more recent material: e.g. the latest MS toolkits, subArctic, Java AWT 1.1, Sun's Swing, JavaBeans, Netscape's Internet Foundation Classes, VB Controls, Amulet, Mastermind	15%
Paper summaries/analyses	Write a 1-page (or less) summary of 5 of the extra-to-textbook readings and a 1-page (or more) critical analysis of same.	15%
Project/paper	Develop a project and/or write a term paper on an approved topic	60%
Participation	Participation in class discussions	10%

Suggested (pre-approved?) Project/Paper Topics

• Tools for identifying, managing, and tracking event flow in apps
• Supporting cut-and-paste in a dynamic C2 architecture (related to OLE and OpenDoc models for embedded editing)
• Supporting fast semantic feedback in C2-style architectures
• Supporting selective undo in a disributed groupware application using C2-style architectures. May include general mechanisms for utilizing the command object notion of Olsen:Chapters 14-15 as the basis for message structures. Reformulate the C2 frameworks based on an improved notion of message?
• A full domain-specific (?) software architecture based for editing applications, starting from the ideas of Olsen:Chapter 12.
• Re-engineer the Endeavors UI to support undo and editing of all three kinds of fundamental Endeavors objects, using ideas from Olsen:Chapter 12.
• JavaBeans and Swing: an evaluation and methodology for use within the C2 context (connectors and C2 framework).
• A new approach to support compositional or distributed (or both) user interfaces (may start out as a survey/issues/objectives paper/project)

Schedule

Week	Date	Class Session	Readings
1	January 7	Introduction	UI toolkit matrix [Coutaz&Taylor; Taylor]
--	January 9	UI development process	Olsen, Ch. 1
2	January 14 Class held earlier in the day?	Task analysis and basic graphics	Olsen, Ch. 2 and 3
--	January 16	Event handling	Olsen, Ch. 4
3	January 21	X windows and Xtk (Ackerman)	---
--	January 23	Basic interaction: MVC	Olsen, Ch. 5; [Krasner&Pope]
4	January 28 Class held on 1/26	[NIST]: class held on 1/26 Interfaces from widgets	Olsen, Ch. 7
--	January 30	Model-based systems: Chiron-1	[Taylor et.al.]
5	February 4	Model-based systems: Mastermind	[Szekeley et.al.]
--	February 6	Software architectures and UIs	[Arch/Slinky] [C2]
6	February 11 Class held on 2/12	[EDCS Melbourne]: class held on 2/12 C2 frameworks; Java AWT events (Hilbert and Medvidovic)	---
--	February 13	[BART]: no class	---
7	February 18	Undo, groupware, and macros	Olsen, Ch. 14, [Calvary, et.al.]
--	February 20	Cut, copy, and paste	Olsen, Ch. 13
8	February 25	[GSAW]: no class	---
--	February 27	UI elements as components	[ Java Beans spec]
9	March 4 Class held on 3/5	[ISSTA]: class held on 3/5 Issues discussion; Input models	Olsen, Ch. 8
--	March 6	Architectures for graphical editing	Olsen, Ch. 12
10	March 11	Student presentations	---
--	March 13 Class held on 3/12	[BART]: class held on 3/12 Student presentations	---
Exams	March 18	Final Exam?	10:30-12:30

Academic Dishonesty