GUIDE: GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT.

Abstract

The GUIDE system, an interactive graphical system for designing and generating graphical user interfaces, is described. This system provides flexibility to the system designer while minimizing the amount of code which the designer must write. The GUIDE methodology includes the notions of 'tool,' 'task,' and 'context. ' GUIDE encourages designers to tailor their systems to individual users by inclusion of user profiles, allowing different control paths based on the user's characteristics. GUIDE also provides a method for invoking application routines with parameters. Parameters may be based on user inputs and are computed at invocation time. Help messages are created along with the objects to which they refer. 17 refs.