Revisiting visual interface programming : creating GUI tools for designers and programmers

Stéphane Chatty (1) , Stéphane Sire (1) , Jean-Luc Vinot (2) , Patrick Lecoanet (2) , Alexandre Lemort (1) , Christophe Mertz (1, 2)

1 Intuilab
2 DGAC - Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile

Involving graphic designers in the large-scale development of user interfaces requires tools that provide more graphical _exibility and support ef_cient software processes. These requirements were analysed and used in the design of the TkZinc graphical library and the IntuiKit interface design environment. More _exibility is obtained through a wider palette of visual techniques and support for iterative construction of images, composition and parametric displays. More ef_cient processes are obtained with the use of the SVG standard to import graphics, support for linking graphics and behaviour, and a unifying model-driven architecture. We describe the corresponding features of our tools, and show their use in the development of an application for airports. Bene_ts include a wider access to high quality visual interfaces for specialised applications, and shorter prototyping and development cycles for multidisciplinary teams.

Mots clés: visual design; vector graphics; SVG; software architecture; GUI tools; model-driven architecture

Domaines: Informatique [cs]; Interface homme-machine [cs.HC]

Stéphane Chatty, Stéphane Sire, Jean-Luc Vinot, Patrick Lecoanet, Alexandre Lemort, et al.. Revisiting visual interface programming : creating GUI tools for designers and programmers. UIST 2004, 17th annual ACM symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Oct 2004, Santa Fe, United States. pp 267-276, ⟨10.1145/1029632.1029678⟩. ⟨hal-00940955⟩