Foundations of Interactive Graphics/User Interfaces
Many researches on user interfaces have lacked solid theoretical
foundations. We claim that the study of interactive user interfaces is
closely related to the semantics of programming languages. We believe
that, by applying the results obtained in programming languages, the
field of user interfaces will acquire more solid formal foundations
for example, the term direct manipulation could be defined more
precisely. New programming paradigms, such as constraint-oriented
programming, are incorporated in order to automate the process of
creation of graphical user interfaces. Inductive inferencing of user
actions allows the system to construct interactive interfaces from
examples given by the user.
Currently, our research on user interface aims at providing interfaces
for abstract objects that have little or no a-priori real-life
representations. In particular, we have devised a framework called
visual mapping, which allow declarative specification of visualization
and manipulation of application data. Based on this framework, we have
built a series of systems; our latest system, TRIP2, allow generation
of interactive interfaces for a variety of abstract data, such as
kinship diagrams and graph editors, by defining a small set of bi-
directional, declarative rules.
Some of the research goals we are currently pursuing are:
- Further research into Visualization and Interactive
Manipulation of Abstract Concepts and Relations
- Automatic Generation of Direct Manipulation Interfaces
- Principles of Interactive Graphics and User Interface
- Visual Interfaces for Massive Parallel Computation.
- Application to Visual Programming