Using AI Techniques to Create User Interfaces by Example

Abstract

Creating user interfaces is a very difficult task. Existing tools to help create user interfaces, called User Interface Management Systems (UIMSs) have typically been very difficult to use and have not addressed the modern, highly-interactive interfaces that are most desirable. Peridot, an experimental UIMS, uses programming by Example techniques to make the interface design task significantly easier. Peridot uses knowledge about the typical properties of user interfaces to generalize from the user interface designer's specific examples to create general-purpose parameterized programs. Peridot is a working prototype UIMS and has been successfully used by non-programmers to create interaction techniques such as menus, scroll bars, buttons, sliders, and iconic and title line window controls. In addition, it appears that expert users can create interfaces using Peridot significantly faster than by coding the interfaces by hand. Peridot created its own interface and can create most of the interaction techniques in the Macintosh Toolbox.