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In recent years, there has been a great deal of research on teleoperation of robots, and many end-effector-oriented control systems have been proposed, but these systems have difficulties in performing manipulation tasks with physical contacts between the target object, the robot, and the environment, such as dual-arm manipulation, because these systems can only express the end-effectors’ pose and force commands. In this study, we propose Target-object-oriented User Interface (TOOUI) that focuses on the target object rather than the end effectors of the robot, and develop a tangible device called Miniature Tangible Cube as a TOOUI. Through this device, the pilot can express the target orientation and contact state of the target object, and the robot can be teleoperated to do dual-arm manipulation tasks with geometric and physical constraints. For dual-arm manipulation tasks, we also implement a dual-arm telemanipulation system with the Miniature Tangible Cube using the motion planner based on state machine. In the experiments, we evaluated our system with the Miniature Tangible Cube by conducting dual-arm manipulation tasks with the dual-arm robot PR2 in the real world.

The purpose of this research is to improve the usability and adaptation of complex information system (CIS) by reducing the complexity. The paper introduces CIS, the complexity of CIS, usability and adaptation issues of CIS, and potential solutions for these issues. Research suggests User Interface (UI) customization can address usability and adaptation issues in CIS. This research proposes the Object-Oriented User Interface Customization (OOUIC) framework to reduce the complexity of CIS, in order to improve the usability and adaptation. The OOUIC approach suggests that classifying users by user roles, e.g., job roles, can reduce the complexity. Use Case Analysis (UCA) can identify actors (job roles) and use cases (goals, tasks, and functions) to develop use case diagrams, tasks diagrams, and function models. Based on model-driven modeling, the mapping between use case diagrams, task diagrams, and function models enables automatic selection of abstract UI and development of concrete UI for each job role. Building connections between vendor UI (V-UI) and concrete UI to generate the adaptable vendor-free UI (MyUI) can ensure the reuse of UI customization on whichever V-UI. The efficiency, robustness, and maintainability of the method had been justified in previous studies. This research proposes a two-phase study by using the product lifecycle management (PLM) system as an example to illustrate that the framework can reduce complexity and improve usability and adaptation.

A well-designed Graphical User Interface (GUI) has critical importance in any computer application. The user interface is where the end users and the complex system intersect. An effective interface design can make a powerful and complex system, such as ROOT, easy and intuitive to learn and operate. This paper describes the main goals we defined and the design solution we found developing the graphics editor in ROOT.

The work deals with the representation of the concepts of program package PIDMaster for the signal analysis, system modeling and controller's synthesis. It is distinguished for the user-friendly interface which enables comfortable work for the less experienced users also. The required user-friendliness was achieved by the use of window interface, completed with some elements of the object oriented user interface management system. Center points of new interface are so-called movable graphical objects and it's usage in the phase of the system parameter estimation which is explained thoroughly.

We have integrated digital video into Trestle, an object-oriented user interface toolkit written in Modula-3. The display of video frames is managed within the application process using, where possible, shared memory to transmit images to the window system. We took advantage of Modula-3's type system, lightweight threads and garbage collection to develop a flexible architecture that supports the reuse of image data within an application; the object-oriented features of Modula-3 we found most useful were inheritance, partial revelations, and encapsulation. We then integrated our video extension into several higher-level tools which allow us to dynamically experiment with video applications.

Object-oriented user interface technology increases the productivity of interface designers and programmers. However, there are some shortcomings to the object-oriented approach. An approach that is based on the concept of separating the presentation from the application data is presented. While in object-oriented user interfaces presentation and application data communicate via a protocol of procedure cells, in this approach the relationships are described declaratively with structured sets of maintained constraints. An overall architecture based on constraints that encompasses all aspects of a user interface is described. The procedural behavior of a user interface is achieved through constraint satisfaction. >

It is very time-consuming and expensive to create highly-interactive graphical styles of user interface. User interface management systems (UIMSs) attempt to make the creation of user interfaces easier, but most existing UIMSs have many problems. This paper describes the Northwestern Polytechnical University UIMS (NPUUIMS), a UIMS that adopts object-oriented methods and direct manipulation techniques that are used to create direct manipulation interfaces. In addition, we introduce a form-independent concept, which allows the presentation components of user interfaces to be generated automatically. >

Until the 1970s, the common control interface for automatic machinery was a hard-wired interface. After that time, command-line interfaces have been used to control the systems. It is now possible to create a general, object-oriented interface for most manufacturing systems that is easy to use, learn how to use, and modify. Such an interface can benefit the user in terms of savings in time and money. The object oriented interface used for multi-purpose robot cell application, designed and implemented in the Center for Integrated Electronics and Electronics Manufacturing (CIEEM) at Rensselaer, is a flexible object oriented interface. This paper includes a description of the fully-automated robot cell created at Rensselaer and describes the user interface development and its final structure.

Our goal is to provide tools to support working meetings onan electronic whiteboard, called Tivoli. This paper de-scribes how we have integrated structured “domain objects”into the whiteboard environment. Domain objects representthe subject matter of meetings and can be exchanged be-tween Tivoli and group databases. Domain objects can betailored to produce meeting tools that are finely tuned tomeeting practices. We describe the facility for tailoring andmanaging domain objects and the user interface techniquesfor blending these into the whiteboard environment. Weshow examples of both specific and generic meeting toolscrafted from domain objects, and we describe a long-termcase study in which these tools support an ongoing workprocess. Keywords: whiteboard metaphor, pen-based systems, freeforminteraction, implicit structure, informal systems, recognition-basedsystems, list structures, meeting support tools, gestural interfaces,user interface design, tailorability, customization, object-orienteduser interfaces

In this paper we present the COMPASS constraint language which integrates high-level layout specifications with the DiwA user interface management system. The general concept of the COMPASS system is the automatic adjustment of constraints according to their high-level specification such that a programming interface to explicitly add, remove or modify constraints is unnecessary. In particular, COMPASS provides the following features to support modular and declarative specifications of changing constraints: association of constraints with classes, a limited reach of constraints by imposing rules on the set of variables which may be used as source or target of a constraint, temporary and conditional constraints, and finally, the concept of a constraint schema which specifies a bundle of similar constraints. At runtime the number of constraints contained in such a bundle varies, i.e. constraints are automatically created or deleted, and each constraint can change its source variables. Declarativeness of constraint schema specifications is achieved by the use of high-level object expressions.

Visualization and manipulation of knowledge is of great importance for any knowledge based system. Window based user interface management systems (UIMS) allow building flexible and easy to use interactive graphical user interfaces. There is a need to integrate such UIMS into knowledge base programming environments. This paper addresses the integration of UIMS into the logic programming environment PROTOS-L. Our approach provides a small set of built-in predicates that defines an easy to use object-oriented interface to UIMS within the logic programming language. This interface is realized by the PROTOS-L window manager and presented by a simple text editor in this paper. Its implementation is based on a multiple process concept with asynchronous communication in order to cope with long lasting inference processes. The prototype of the PROTOS-L window manager is implemented on top of the standard user interface toolkit OSF/Motif.

GraphEd is an extensible graph editor. Its powerful object oriented user interface supports all operations that are necessary for the convenient construction and manipulation of graphs. Graph grammars can be used as a macro system to create structured graphs.

Object-oriented programming techniques are considered appropriate for the development of event-driven interactive systems with an object-oriented user interface. Due to the lack of any formalism in object-oriented user interface design and implementation, we utilize our experience in the use of grammar-based notations for the formal specification of user interfaces. This paper proposes a model which combines the Arch and the PAC models with the Bypass mechanism and shows their proper application and interpretation in the decomposition of an interactive system during its development. The adoption of attributed layered translation grammars is proposed for the formal description of the agents in this model. The prototype of the OOGC UIMS system supporting the grammar-based specification of user interfaces is presented in this paper.

The authors present a new approach to RF planning. The key design is an object-oriented user interface that allows the user to translate mission objectives into user-understandable results. Features include the integration of visualization tools, digital mapping, rule-based selection of propagation models, presentation of a model's results as stochastic values, and estimation of mission success presented in the geographical context. A mission success visualization tool, called the Lott Plot, permits the user to see the effects on mission success caused by receiver sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio, channel occupancy estimates, and noise floor. The system will operate on a high-speed engineering workstation. Final delivery is Summer 1997.

In a previous paper we described a self-documented file and a collection of general purpose programs or tools that facilitates the management and analysis of biological data. The tools can be specified in a pipeline to accomplish a specific analysis task. However, we found that it was difficult for investigators to learn the UNIX command language for specifying pipelines, specify selection tasks through a command language, and visualize the data as they were transformed and rearranged. To alleviate these problems we developed an object-oriented user interface for the pipeline programs. The system consists of four major programs for visualization: Vedit, Vgraf, Vscan, and Vspread. Vedit is a simple text editor, Vgraf is a flexible graphics program, Vscan facilitates scanning graphically through large files, and Vspread provides spreadsheet-like capabilities. To demonstrate how the visualization programs are used together to accomplish the needed analysis we describe two case studies and then discuss how well the system accomplished the goals of visualization, short learning curve, and user adaptability.

Model-based tools enable developers to produce prototype user interface designs from a model of the system. Existing model-based tools do not enable a developer to work from an abstract specification of the system to produce a prototype design. Consequently, much design work focuses prematurely on the concrete visual appearance of the user interface. To address this issue, patterns are discussed that provide a formal model-based design process commencing from an abstract specification.

The George Washington User Interface Management System (GWUIMS) has been designed as a test bed for comparing user interface models, as a tool for rapidly prototyping highly interactive graphic user interfaces, and as a vehicle for investigating the applicability of knowledge-based technology to user interface design. The GWUIMS was designed and implemented using the object-oriented programming paradigm and consists of a variety of object classes representing different levels of abstraction, Responsibility for lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels of both input parsing and feedback are distributed throughout these classes. We include a description of the GWUIMS and a brief scenario to demonstrate its capabilities. A description of the implementation is followed by a discussion of the future application of knowledge representation techniques and the evolution towards an intelligent assistant for the user interface designer.