MARIA XML

Last updated December 26, 2021

MARIA (Model-based lAnguage foR Interactive Applications)^[1] is a universal, declarative, multiple abstraction level, XML-based user interface markup language for modelling interactive applications in ubiquitous environments.

Abstract User Interface

The MARIA Abstract User Interface (AUI) level describes a UI only through the semantics of the interaction, without referring to a particular device capability, interaction modality or implementation technology. An AUI is composed by various Presentations that groups model elements presented to the user at once. The model elements are of two types: Interactor or InteractorComposition. The former represents every type of user interaction object, the latter groups together elements that have a logical relationship.

According to its semantics an interactor belongs to one of the following subtypes:

Selection. Allows the user to select one or more values among the elements of a predefined list. According to the number of values that can be selected, the interactor can be a Single Choice or a Multiple Choice.
Edit. Allows the user to manually edit the object represented by the interactor, which can be text (TextEdit), a number (NumericalEdit), a position (PositionEdit) or a generic object (ObjectEdit).
Control. Allows the user to switch between presentations (Navigator) or to activate UI functionalities (Activator).
OnlyOutput. Represents information that is submitted to the user, not affected by user actions. It can be a text a Description that represents different types of media, an Alarm, a Feedback or a generic Object.

The different types of interactor-compositions are:

Grouping: a generic group of interactor elements.
Relation: a group where two or more elements are related to each other.
CompositeDescription: represents a group aimed to present contents through a mixture of Description and Navigator elements.
Repeater which is used to repeat the content according to data retrieved from a generic data source

MARIA allows describing not only the presentation aspects but also the interactive behaviour. For this purpose it has various features:

Data Model: the description of the data types bound with elements of the interface. At runtime, modifying the state of an interactor will change also the value of the bound data element and vice versa, in order to describe dynamic UI changes (correlation between UI elements, conditional layout, conditional connections between presentations, input values format etc.). The data model is defined using the standard XML Schema Definition constructs.
Generic Back End. The interface definition contains a set of ExternalFunctions declarations, which represents functionalities exploited by the UI but implemented by a generic application back-end support (e.g. web services, code libraries, databases etc.).
Event Model. Each interactor definition has a number of associated events that allow the specification of UI reaction triggered by the user interaction.
Dialog Model. The dialog model contains constructs for specifying the dynamic behaviour of a presentation, specifying what events can be triggered at a given time. The dialog expressions are connected using CTT^[3] operators in order to define their temporal relationships.
Continuous update of fields. It is possible to specify that a given field should be periodically updated invoking an external function.
Dynamic Set of User Interface Elements. The language contains constructs for specifying partial presentation updates (dynamically changing the content of entire groupings) and the possibility to specify a conditional navigation between presentations.

This set of new features allows having already at the abstract level a model of the user interface that is not tied to layout details, but it is complete enough for reasoning on how UI supports both the user interaction and the application back end.

Concrete User Interface

A Concrete User Interface (CUI) in MARIA provides platform-dependent but implementation language-independent details of a UI. A platform is a set of software and hardware interaction resources that characterize a given set of devices. MARIA currently supports the following platforms:

Desktop CUIs model graphical interfaces for desktop computers.
Mobile CUIs model graphical interfaces for mobile devices.
Multimodal Desktop CUIs model interfaces that combine the graphical and vocal modalities for desktop computers.
Multimodal Mobile CUIs model interfaces that combine the graphical and vocal modalities for mobile devices.
Vocal CUIs interfaces with vocal message rendering and speech recognition.

Each platform meta-model is a refinement of the AUI, which specifies how a given abstract interactor can be represented in the current platform. For instance, if we consider the abstract Single Choice interactor, it can be implemented (on a graphical desktop platform) with a radio button, a drop down list or a list box, while on the vocal platform it can be rendered with a list of vocal messages for each option associated to a given keyword. The same applies for the interactor compositions: in a desktop platform a grouping can be implemented using background colours, borders etc., while in a vocal platform it is possible to use sounds before the first group element. The model definition can be exploited for creating (or deriving with a code generator) final implementations in different target languages.

Tool Support

The creation and editing of MARIA models, together with the generation of the final UI code is supported by the MARIAE tool.

Related Research Articles

The graphical user interface is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, instead of text-based user interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.

In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, while the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls, and process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to, or involve such disciplines as, ergonomics and psychology.

Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user interface elements. On a technical level, an OLE object is any object that implements the IOleObject interface, possibly along with a wide range of other interfaces, depending on the object's needs.

Model–view–controller Software design pattern

Model–view–controller (MVC) is a software design pattern commonly used for developing user interfaces that divide the related program logic into three interconnected elements. This is done to separate internal representations of information from the ways information is presented to and accepted from the user.

A graphical widget in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these.

Common User Access (CUA) is a standard for user interfaces to operating systems and computer programs. It was developed by IBM and first published in 1987 as part of their Systems Application Architecture. Used originally in the MVS/ESA, VM/CMS, OS/400, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems, parts of the CUA standard are now implemented in programs for other operating systems, including variants of Unix. It is also used by Java AWT and Swing.

Human interface guidelines (HIG) are software development documents which offer application developers a set of recommendations. Their aim is to improve the experience for the users by making application interfaces more intuitive, learnable, and consistent. Most guides limit themselves to defining a common look and feel for applications in a particular desktop environment. The guides enumerate specific policies. Policies are sometimes based on studies of human–computer interaction, but most are based on conventions chosen by the platform developers preferences.

A user interface markup language is a markup language that renders and describes graphical user interfaces and controls. Many of these markup languages are dialects of XML and are dependent upon a pre-existing scripting language engine, usually a JavaScript engine, for rendering of controls and extra scriptability.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a free and open-source graphical subsystem originally developed by Microsoft for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0 in 2006. WPF uses DirectX and attempts to provide a consistent programming model for building applications. It separates the user interface from business logic, and resembles similar XML-oriented object models, such as those implemented in XUL and SVG.

Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) is an application programming interface (API) for user interface accessibility. MSAA was introduced as a platform add-on to Microsoft Windows 95 in 1997. MSAA is designed to help Assistive Technology (AT) products interact with standard and custom user interface (UI) elements of an application, as well as to access, identify, and manipulate an application's UI elements. AT products work with MSAA enabled applications in order to provide better access for individuals who have physical or cognitive difficulties, impairments, or disabilities. Some examples of AT products are screen readers for users with limited sight, on screen keyboards for users with limited physical access, or narrators for users with limited hearing. MSAA can also be used for automated testing tools, and computer-based training applications.

User interface (UI) design or user interface engineering is the design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, home appliances, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. The goal of user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals.

A User Interface Management System (UIMS) is a mechanism for cleanly separating process or business logic from Graphical user interface (GUI) code in a computer program. UIMS are designed to support N-tier architectures by strictly defining and enforcing the boundary between the business logic and the GUI. A fairly rigid Software architecture is nearly always implied by the UIMS, and most often only one paradigm of separation is supported in a single UIMS. A UIMS may also have libraries and systems such as graphical tools for the creation of user interface resources or data stores.

User interface modeling is a development technique used by computer application programmers. Today's user interfaces (UIs) are complex software components, which play an essential role in the usability of an application. The development of UIs requires therefore, not only guidelines and best practice reports, but also a development process including the elaboration of visual models and a standardized notation for this visualization.

Microsoft UI Automation (UIA) is an application programming interface (API) that allows one to access, identify, and manipulate the user interface (UI) elements of another application.

An adaptive user interface is a user interface (UI) which adapts, that is changes, its layout and elements to the needs of the user or context and is similarly alterable by each user.

A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms.

ConcurTaskTrees (CTT) is a notation for task model specifications useful to support design of interactive applications specifically tailored for user interface model-based design.

The Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) is a standardized modeling language in the field of software engineering. IFML includes a set of graphic notations to create visual models of user interactions and front-end behavior in software systems.

Fyne is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) across desktop and mobile platforms. Fyne uses OpenGL to provide cross-platform graphics. It is inspired by the principles of Material Design to create applications that look and behave consistently across all platforms. It is licensed under the terms of the 3-clause BSD License, supporting the creation of free and proprietary applications. In December 2019 Fyne became the most popular GUI toolkit for Go, by GitHub star count and in early February 2020 it was trending as #1 project in GitHub trending ranks.

References

↑ Paternò, Fabio; Santoro Carmen; Spano Lucio Davide (2009). "MARIA: a universal, declarative, multiple abstraction-level language for service-oriented applications in ubiquitous environments" (PDF). ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction . 16 (4): 219–224. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
↑ Cantera Fonseca, José Manuel; Juan M. González Calleros; Gerrit Meixner; Fabio Paternò; Jaroslav Pullmann; Dave Raggett; Daniel Schwabe; Jean Vanderdonckt. "Model-Based UI XG Final Report" . Retrieved 25 July 2011.
↑ Paternò, Fabio (2000). Model-based design and evaluation of interactive applications. Springer.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[maria-1] Paternò, Fabio; Santoro Carmen; Spano Lucio Davide (2009). "MARIA: a universal, declarative, multiple abstraction-level language for service-oriented applications in ubiquitous environments" (PDF). ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction . 16 (4): 219–224. Retrieved 25 July 2011.

[mbui-2] Cantera Fonseca, José Manuel; Juan M. González Calleros; Gerrit Meixner; Fabio Paternò; Jaroslav Pullmann; Dave Raggett; Daniel Schwabe; Jean Vanderdonckt. "Model-Based UI XG Final Report" . Retrieved 25 July 2011.

[3] Paternò, Fabio (2000). Model-based design and evaluation of interactive applications. Springer.

[1]

[2]

[3]