Application Interface Development Environment

RC 11160 (#50246) The user of interactive systems must learn a different interface for each system he uses. Furthermore the designer of such systems has limited guidelines to create good user interfaces. We describe an application interface development environment, AIDE, in which one can create and select multiple interfaces easily for a given application, and conversely one can create multiple applications with a given interface. This benefits the end-user by providing the possibility of familiar, even identical, interfaces among wide ranges of products, and this helps the designer by supporting Human Factors testing of interfaces. We formulate a model of interactive systems in which the application and interface are decoupled and the components of the interface can be changed. We also provide tools for these components and a methodology to create and sélect interfaces