rom abstract objects like user tasks. ost interface development problems can be traced to two sources: the need for usercentered design environments and the lack of software systems that support all major development stages. Developer-centered environments, which are typical of most systems, give ample support to using and managing widgets, organizing and arranging layouts, and testing prototype interfaces, but fall short of answering key questions such as how widgets in a given dialog box can be used to accomplish a particular user task. The designer is forced to rely on her own experience to answer such questions or to distill a solution from loosely connected documentation. In this article, I describe Mobi-D1,2 (Model-Based Interface Designer), a comprehensive environment that supports usercentered design through model-based interface development. In the Mobi-D paradigm, a series of declarative models, such as user-task, dialog, and presentation, are interrelated to provide a formal...
Angel R. Puerta, Pedro Szkeley