USIXML: A language supporting multi-path development of User Interfaces

Abstract

USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language (USIXML) consists in a User Interface Description Language (UIDL) allowing designers to apply a multi-path development of user interfaces. In this development paradigm, a user interface can be specified and produced at and from different, and possibly multiple, levels of abstraction while maintaining the mappings between these levels if required. Thus, the development process can be initiated from any level of abstraction and proceed towards obtaining one or many final user interfaces for various contexts of use at other levels of abstraction. In this way, the model-to-model transformation, which is the cornerstone of Model-Driven Architecture (MDA), can be supported in multiple configurations, based on composition of three basic transformation types: abstraction, reification, and translation. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.