A Method for Developing 3D User Interfaces of Information Systems

A transformational method for developing tri-dimensional user interfaces of interactive information systems is presented that starts from a task model and a domain model to progressively derive a final user interface. This method consists of three steps: deriving one or many abstract user interfaces from a task model and a domain model, deriving one or many concrete user interfaces from each abstract interface, and producing the code of the final user interfaces corresponding to each concrete interface. To ensure the two first steps, transformations are encoded as graph transformations performed on the involved models expressed in their graph equivalent. In addition, a graph grammar gathers relevant graph transformations for accomplishing the sub-steps involved in each step. Once a concrete user interface is resulting from these two first steps, it is converted in a development environment for 3D user interfaces where it can be edited for fine tuning and personalization. From this environment, the user interface code is automatically generated. The method is defined by its steps, input/output, and exemplified on a case study. By expressing the steps of the method through transformations between models, the method adheres to Model-Driven Engineering paradigm where models and transformations are explicitly defined and used.