Miroslav Macik

Context-sensitive, cross-platform user interface generation

User interfaces (UI) of software applications play a crucial part in communication with users. Attractive UIs often lead to market success, and thus there is a significant incentive to provide users with malleable UIs that can adapt as much as possible to their needs. However, such UIs require significant development and maintenance efforts. In this paper, we describe a context model based on ability-based design that is well suited to the purposes of automated UI generation. We then introduce a platform that delivers adaptive UIs across various platforms. We use runtime combinatoric optimisation to support usability and to generate context-sensitive UIs. Since the development and maintenance of such UIs can be complex, our platform integrates a module for code-inspection for data-oriented applications to reduce these efforts. It also utilises a visual editor to simplify manual UI design.

Efficient description and cache performance in Aspect-Oriented user interface design

Increasing demands on web user interface (UI) usability, adaptability, and dynamic behavior drives ever growing development and maintenance complexity. Conventional design approaches scale poorly with such rising complexity, resulting in rapidly increasing costs. Much of the complexity centers around data presentation and processing. Recent work greatly reduces such data complexity through the application of Aspect-Oriented UI (AOUI) design, which separates various UI concerns; however, rendering in conventional and even AOUI approaches fails to maintain this separation, often resulting in high repetitions of concern fragments due to tangling. Even worse, mixing of dynamic and immutable components greatly limits caching efficacy as each have differing lifetimes. We extend AOUI design to push down concern separation to rendering, which reduces description size, through repetition reduction, and enables separate caching of individual concerns. Our results show considerable size reduction of UI descriptions for data presentations, faster load times and extended caching capabilities.

Platform-Aware Rich-Form Generation for Adaptive Systems through Code-Inspection

This paper introduces a framework for adaptive user interface (UI) development. Our framework facilitates development and maintenance efforts through code inspection. Information already captured elsewhere is reused in the UI rather than restated. In our approach, inspected information is transformed in multiple stages through an aspect-oriented approach. As each stage may be influenced at runtime, our approach allows systems to be built with context-aware adaptive UIs. In addition, the selection of UI elements and their layout is generated using optimal metrics. The output of our approach can be influenced by the target platform. Our approach to UI is shown in detail in a case study.

UI generation for data visualisation in heterogenous environment

The process of data visualisation can be very complex and an urgent need for interactive control of this process is imminent. Solution to this problem is in the field of user interfaces by means of which the user can efficiently control all aspects of the visualisation. One of the fields where a lot of challenges for development of new user interfaces exist is data visualisation in heterogeneous environment. In such case data are visualised on various devices that have different capabilities. This fact influences not only the results of the visualisation process but also design and implementation of user interface for each particular device. In situation when an application is capable to run on various devices it is rather problematic to manually create individual user interfaces, one for each device. In this paper a concept and results of automatic generation of user interfaces in a heterogeneous environment is described.

Development framework for pervasive computing applications

Pervasive computing [1] brings the technology closer to the users by enabling the users to use daily-life devices (mobile phones, TVs, touch screen walls, etc.) for controlling their environment and accessing information virtually anywhere. Interacting with such devices does not remind users of classical computers and enables them to more naturally interact with the controlled system, if user interface is designed properly. These devices usually operate in networked environments with every controlling and controlled device connected to a central hub. Bringing easy-to-use applications to such environments faces the challenge of highly heterogeneous, dynamically changing environment and necessity to deploy applications to controlling devices with very different features (display size, input methods, operating systems, etc.).

Software architecture for a distributed in-hospital navigation system

Hospital environments are typically large, and even healthy individuals can need a navigation map. When we consider the combination of stress, concerns about health and convalescence, age and other factors that can affect hospital patients, it is clear that navigation can be a problem, and that assistance may be required. This paper focuses on the technical realization of an in-hospital navigation system tailored for users with limited orientation capabilities. A network of navigational terminals installed on appropriate navigation spots throughout a hospital building is used to guide a user to his/her destination. A computer vision method is used for seamless user identification. Software and hardware implementation of navigation terminals, and also network communication, are discussed in this paper.

An initial study of effects of temporary disabilities

The research of disabilities and their effects on the usability of the user interfaces has long since been established itself in the field of the human-computer interaction. The target groups of this research mostly include people with permanent disabilities (vision-, motor-, or hearing-related). Due to a number of reasons (illness, injury, etc.), a user may enter the state of disability only for a limited amount of time (temporary disability).

Breathing Friend: Tackling Stress Through Portable Tangible Breathing Artifact

We present Breathing Friend – a portable and tangible device that uses haptic interaction to unobtrusively stimulate mindful breathing as efficient stress coping method. Its design is optimized for holding in user’s hands. By changing its shape, it sends haptic signals to the user. Several studies were conducted where we explored and verified the form factors of the artifact, interaction methods, therapeutic effect, fitting to everyday life, and influence on the breathing pattern.