Distributed User Interfaces: Specification of Essential Properties

Abstract

In the last few years, the traditional concept of user interface has been changing significantly. The development of new surprising devices supporting new amazing interaction mechanisms have changed the way in which people interact with computers. In this environment of strong technological growth, the increasing use of different displays managed by several users has improved user interaction. Combining fixed displays with wearable devices allows interaction and collaboration between users when they work together in a common task. Traditional user interfaces are evolving towards “distributed” user interfaces according to the new technological advances, allowing one or more interaction elements distributed among many different platforms in order to support interaction with one or more users. This paper offers a formal view of distributed user interfaces (DUI) as a mean to understand better their essentials properties and to establish the bases for formally proving properties as correctness and coherency. The proposal has been applied to a case study.