A use case-oriented user interface framework

Abstract

Interactive computer applications are sometimes specified by their use cases. These specifications are often formulated in a natural language to enable domain experts, that are not familiar with formal notations, to validate their usefulness. A use case-oriented application framework facilitates manual translation of the natural language specifications into high level code, whose equivalence with the specifications is easy to establish. The purpose is to reduce the costs of both verification and coding. A previous framework of this kind achieved its high level by providing most of the graphical user interface (GUI) code. However, the automatically produced GUI was not always satisfactory. This study reports on advances achieved by more intelligent user interface construction framework. The study introduces a new kind of user interface component, called use case displayer, that enables an almost automatic generation of the user interface of the entire application. The framework was tested in a student laboratory, where it reduced the implementation effort, leaving most of the time (10 of the 15 available weeks) for requirements elicitation, specification development and validation. As expected, the designs produced had a higher level of usability than found in comparable student laboratories. At this stage the framework is useful for student laboratories. More research is required to assess its suitability for industrial use.