It is generally acknowledged that the production of quality user interfaces requires a thorough understanding of the user and that this involves evaluating the system by observing the user using the system, or by performing human factors experiments. Such methods traditionally involve the use of videotape, protocol analysis, critical incident analysis, etc. These methods require time consuming analyses and may be invasive. In addition, the data obtained through such methods represent a relatively small portion of the use of a system. An alternative approach is to record all user input and system output onto a file, i.e., log the user session. Such transcripts can be collected automatically and over a long period of time. Unfortunately, this produces voluminous amounts of data. There is therefore a need for tools and techniques that allow an evaluator to extract from such data potential performance and usability problems. It is hypothesized that repetition of user actions is an important indicator of potential user interface problems. This research reports on the use of the repetition indicator as a means of studying user session transcripts in the evaluation of user interfaces. The dissertation discusses the algorithms involved, the interactive tool constructed, the results of an extensive application of the technique in the evaluation of a large image-processing system, and extensions and refinements to the technique. Evidence suggests that the hypothesis is justified and that such a technique is convincingly useful. / Ph. D.

Computer-aided process planning is an essential interface between computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing. In this thesis, a computer-aided process planning system - TIPPS is developed. A CAD design model is used for direct input in the TIPPS system. A boundary internal model of the engineering part drawing is displayed on a CRT screen, and using an interactive procedure, surface which require machining can be marked. A backward planning scheme searches a process knowledge database to find a sequence of manufacturing processes which can achieve the design specification. The process knowledge database consists of process description statements. A process description statement (mathematical terms are used) represents the capabilities of a single process. TIPPS also selects process parameters - feed and cutting speed automatically. TIPPS provides: 1) direct CAD interface, 2) external process capability description language, 3) modular structure, and 4) interactive surface identification. Various approaches used in designing and process planning are discussed. A review of CAD, process engineering, planning decision methods and current process planning systems is included. / Ph. D.

The Dialogue Management System (DMS), the setting for this research, is a system for designing, implementing, testing, and modifying interactive human-computer systems. As in the early stages of software engineering development, current approaches to human-computer interface design are ad hoc, unstructured, and incomplete. The primary goal of this research has been to develop a structural, descriptive, language-oriented model of human-computer interaction, based on a theory of human-computer interaction. This model is a design and implementation model, serving as the framework for a dialogue engineering methodology for human-computer interface design and interactive tools for human-computer interface implementation. This research has five general task areas, each building on the previous task. The theory of human-computer interaction is a characterization of the inherent properties of human-computer interaction. Based on observations of humans communicating with computers using a variety of interface types, it addresses the fundamental question of what happens when humans interact with computers. Formalization of the theory has led to a muIti-dimensional dialogue transaction model, which encompasses the set of dialogue components and relationships among them. The model is based on three traditional levels of language: semantic, syntactic, and lexical. Its dimensions allow tailoring of an interface to specific states of the dialogue, based on the sequence of events that might occur during human-computer interaction. This model has two major manifestations: a dialogue engineering methodology and a set of interactive dialogue implementation tools. The dialogue engineering methodology consists of a set of procedures and a specification notation for the design of human-computer interfaces. The interactive dialogue implementation tools of AIDE provide automated support for implementing human-computer interfaces. The AIDE interface is based on a "what you see is what you get" concept, allowing the dialogue author to implement interfaces without writing programs. Finally, an evaluation of work has been conducted to determine its efficacy and usefulness in developing human-computer interfaces. A group of subject dialogue authors using AIDE created and modified a prespecified interface in a mean time of just over one hour, while a group of subject application programmers averaged nearly four hours to program the identical interface. Theories, models, methodologies, and tools such as those addressed by this research promise to contribute greatly to the ease of production and evaluation of human-computer interfaces. / Ph. D.

The user interface development process occurs in a behavioral domain and in a constructional domain. The development process in the behavioral domain focuses on the "look and feel" of the user interface and its behavior in response to user actions. The development process in the constructional domain focuses on developing software to implement the user interface. Although one may attempt to design a user interface from a constructional view, it is important to concentrate design efforts in the behavioral domain to improve software usability. User Action Notation (UAN) is a useful technique for representing user interaction designs in the behavioral domain. Primary abstractions in UAN-expressed designs are user tasks. Information about interface objects is encapsulated in user task descriptions and scenarios. Primary abstractions in a GUI such as Motif™ are interface objects. Motif implements objects' behavior and appearance using system functions that are encapsulated within pre-defined object classes. Therefore, user interaction developers and software developers must communicate well to translate UAN-expressed interaction designs into Motif-based software designs. Translation is not trivial since it is a translation between two significantly different domains. This thesis contributes to understanding of the user interface development process by developing a foundation to assist translation of user interaction designs into Motif-based software designs. This thesis develops the foundation as follows: 1. Adapt UAN for use with Motif. 2. Summarize Motif concepts about objects and object relationships. 3. Develop new approaches for discussing objects and object relationships. 4. Develop a partial translation guide containing VAN descriptions of selected Motif abstractions. / Master of Science

This thesis investigates strategies to improve automated interface testing through AI-driven repairs in the context of web applications. The study addresses the challenge of automated tests failing to adapt to minor interface changes, leading to manual intervention and maintenance. By leveraging AI models, particularly ChatGPT, this thesis explores automating test repairs in response to web interface changes to streamline testing processes. The approach used for automation is devloping a prototype for prompt generation, which includes finding the interface changes responsible for failing tests. The automatically generated prompts can be sent to ChatGPT in order to both determine the reason for the test failure, and providing an updated passing test.  Results of using the prototype togheter with ChatGPT were overall successful, but there are several areas of improvement. For example, different strategies for collecting relevant changes or another choice of AI-model.  Key findings include differences and properties of existing automated interface testing tools Cypress and Playwright, the impact of web interface changes on automated test repair performance, and the factors influencing the success of AI-based test repair methods.  In conclusion, combining robustness techniques with AI-driven test reparation has the potential to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of automated interface testing, although it may not apply to all kinds of interface changes. Further research and refinement of AI-based methods show promise for advancing automated testing practices.

This paper focuses on developing and evaluating a bloat-free 3D game engine, prioritizingmemory efficiency, loading times, and overall performance. Optimizing softwareperformance becomes imperative with the ever-increasing complexity of software and thediminishing returns of Moore’s law. The prevalent use of design patterns, libraries, andlanguage features often prioritizes abstraction and scalability over performance, leadingto bloated software with memory inefficiencies and longer loading times.The presented research addresses this challenge by exploring the feasibility and potentialbenefits of designing a game engine with a bloat-free approach. The study formulatesproblem statements regarding memory utilization, CPU usage, time to export a game, andengine launch time, setting the foundation for developing the game engine, CogWheel.The evaluation of CogWheel involves comparative testing against industry-standardengines like Unity and Unreal Engine with the problem statements as a foundation.Results indicate promising outcomes for CogWheel, showing notable improvements intime-to-export, CPU usage, and memory utilization, especially in simpler projects.However, the thesis shows that the differences become more nuanced in more complexscenes, highlighting areas for further development and testing.

För att bli mer konkurrenskraftiga tillverkare är det viktigt att ha en fabrik som har en hög tillgänglighet. Ett effektivt sätt att uppnå detta är genom att implementera Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Syftet med projektet är att skapa en applikation som hanterar FMEA på ett mer användarvänligt sätt samt sparar informationen i en databas. Informationen ska sedan kunna presenteras på ett överskådligt sätt i en dashboard. Applikationen kommer utvecklas i Node.js med Express som framwork. För att lagra informationen används PostgreSQL databas. För att validera att applikationen är mer användarvänlig än nuvarande system kommer ett experiment med en faktor med två behandlingar användas. Det som ska jämföras är det befintliga systemet och applikationen. Detta sker med System Usability Scale (SUS) samt med T-tester. Målet är att nå ett SUS resultat på 68 och att applikationen är statistiskt bevisad bättre med hjälp av T-tester. Resultatet av SUS blev att det befintliga systemet fick 38,0 SUS-poäng och applikationen 75,9 poäng. / To become more competitive, it is crucial to have a factory with high availability. An effective way to achieve this is by implementing Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). By creating an application that handles FMEA in a more user-friendly manner and saves the information in a database. The information should then be presented in an easy-to-understand manner in a dashboard. The application will be developed in Node.js with Express as the framework. PostgreSQL database will be used to store the information. To validate that the application is more user-friendly, an experiment with one factor and two treatments will be used. What will be compared is the existing system and the application. This will be done with the System Usability Scale (SUS) and T-tests. The goal is to achieve a SUS result of 68 and that the application is statistically proven better with the help of T-tests. The result of SUS was that the existing system received 38.0 SUS points and the application 75.9 points.

The increasing availability of Web services and grid computing has made easier the access and reuse of different types of services. Web services provide network accessible interfaces to application functionality in a platform-independent manner. Developments in grid computing have led to the efficient distribution of computing resources and power through the use of stateful web services. At the same time, mobile devices as a platform of computing have become a ubiquitous, inexpensive, and powerful computing resource. Concepts such as cloud computing has pushed the trend towards using grid concepts in the internet domain and are ideally suited for internet-supported mobile devices. Currently, there are a few complete implementations that leverage mobile devices as a member of a grid or virtual organization. This thesis presents a framework that enables the use of mobile devices to access stateful Web services on a Globus-based grid. To illustrate the presented framework, a user-friendly mobile application has been created that utilizes the framework libraries do to demonstrate the various functionalities that are accessible from any mobile device that supports Java ME. / by Jan Christian Mangs. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Web services have become increasingly important over the past decades. Versatility and platform independence are just some of their advantages. On the other hand, grid computing enables the efficient distribution of computing resources. Together, they provide a great source of computing power that can be particularly leveraged by mobile devices. Mobile computing enables information creation, processing, storage and communication without location constraints [63], not only improving business' operational efficiency [63] but actually changing a way of life. However, the convenience of anytime and anywhere communication is counterbalanced by small screens, limited computing power and battery life. Despite these limitations, mobile devices can extend grid functionality by bringing to the mix not only mobile access but sensing capabilities as well, gathering information from their surroundings through built in mechanisms, such as microphone, camera, GPS and even accelerometers. Prior work has already demonstrated the possibility of enabling Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) access to grid resources from mobile device clients in the WSRF-ME project [39], where a representative Nokia S60 Smartphone application was created on a framework, which extends the JSR-172 functionality to achieve WSRF compliance. In light of today's mobile phone market diversity, this thesis extends the solution proposed by WSRF-ME to non-Java ME phones and to Android devices in particular. Android-based device numbers have grown considerably over the past couple of years despite its recent creation and reduced availability of mature software tools. / Therefore, Android's web service capabilities are studied and the original framework is analyzed in order to propose a modified framework version that achieves and documents WSRF compliant communication form Android for the first time. As a case study, an illustrative mobile File Explorer application is developed to match the mod framework' functionality to the original WSRF-ME's use case. An additional case study, the LIGO Monitor application, shows the viability of mobile web services for monitoring purposes in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO) grid environment for the first time. The context that an actual application implementation such as LIGO provides, allows some of the challenges of real mobile grid clients to surface. As a result, the observations made during this development give way to the drafting of a preliminary set of guidelines for Globus service implementation suitable for Android consumption that still remain open for proof in future works. / by Adriana Garcia-Kunzel. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

"In order to make large applications that manage multi-attribute data usable, they must have an effective user interface. Application data and data relationships must be displayed in a manner that is useful for a particular user while still following principles of user interface design. A User Interface Management System (UIMS) is an application independent data presentation system which isolates the interface portion of the application and can allow a high level of customization. A presentation description language can be used to control the UIMS and allow maximum flexibility. This thesis investigates a UIMS controlled by a language that allows a user to easily describe the application data and data relationships at a high level of abstraction. The UIMS uses this language to structure application data and augment it with properties. A rule-based system then uses the augmented data along with graphical design knowledge to determine the content, layout and details of the interface used to display the data. Finally, a graphical interface is generated to present the data. A system to provide this functionality was designed and implemented. Experiences with the system showed this approach to be valid and provided ideas for future work. "