Abstract. Multi-fidelity prototyping combines within a single user interface prototype several elements whose representations are reproduced with different levels of fidelity with respect to the final user interface: no fidelity at all, low fidelity, medium fidelity, and high fidelity. In order to effectively and efficiently support multi-fidelity, an original set of techniques is defined and discussed: multiple representation manipulation by sketching and gesture recognition, smooth transition between any representation at any time, prototype reusability, multi-platform support, and multiple user interface prototyping facilities. The full implementation of these techniques in prototyping software provides designers and developers with a unique environment for exploring multiple designs with unprecedented support for quickly designing interfaces from scratch or from previously existing design templates. An experimental study reveals that the multiple representation manipulation together with smooth transition represents a valuable advantage for naturally designing user interfaces. The prototyping software supports several aspects involved in the user interface development life cycle and is convenient for non-WIMP user interfaces.

Sketching activities are widely adopted during early design phases of user interface development to convey informal specifications of the interface presentation and dialog. Designers or even end users can sketch some or all of the future interface they want. With the ever increasing availability of different computing platforms, a need arises to continuously support sketching across these platforms with their various programming languages, interface development environments and operating systems. To address needs along these dimensions, which pose new challenges to user interface sketching tools, SketchiXML is a multi-platform multi-agent interactive application that enable designers and end users to sketch user interfaces with different levels of details and support for different contexts of use. The results of the sketching are then analyzed to produce interface specifications independently of any context, including user and platform. These specifications are exploited to progressively produce one or several interfaces, for one or many users, platforms, and environments.

Abstract. In this paper we present a new algorithm for automatic recognition of hand drawn sketches based on the Levenshtein distance. The purpose for drawing sketches in our application is to create graphical user interfaces in a similar manner as the well established paper sketching. The new algorithm is trainable by every user and improves the recognition performance of the techniques which were used before for widget recognition. In addition, this algorithm ay serve for recognizing other types of sketches, such as letters, figures, and commands. In this way, there is no modality disruption at sketching time.

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Sketching consists of a widely practiced activity during early design phases of product in general and for user interface development in particular in order to convey informal specifications of the interface before actually implementing it. It is quite interesting to observe that designers as well as end users have abilities to sketch parts or whole of the final user interface they want, while discussing the advantages and shortcomings. SketchiXML consists of a multiplatform multi-agent interactive application that enables designers, developers, or even end users to sketch user interfaces with different levels of details and support for different contexts of use. The results of the sketching are then analyzed to produce interface specifications independently of any context, including user and platform. These specifications are exploited to progressively produce one or several interfaces, for one or many users, platforms, and environments.