The MaggLite Post-WIMP Toolkit: Draw it, Connect it and Run it

This article presents MaggLite, a toolkit and sketch-based interface builder allowing fast and interactive design of post-WIMP user interfaces. MaggLite improves design of advanced UIs thanks to its novel mixed-graph architecture that dynamically combines scene-graphs with interaction-graphs. Scene-graphs provide mechanisms to describe and produce rich graphical effects, whereas interaction-graphs allow expressive and fine-grained description of advanced interaction techniques and behaviors such as multiple pointers management, toolglasses, bimanual interaction, gesture, and speech recognition. Both graphs can be built interactively by sketching the UI and specifying the interac-tion using a dataflow visual language. Communication between the two graphs is managed at runtime by compo-nents we call Interaction Access Points. While developers can extend the toolkit by refining built-in generic mecha-nisms, UI designers can quickly and interactively design, prototype and test advanced user interfaces by applying the MaggLite principle: “draw it, connect it and run it”. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H5.2 [Information Interfaces]: User Interfaces―Graphical user interface