Equivalence Checking for Comparing User Interfaces
Résumé
Plastic User Interfaces (UIs) have the capacity to adapt to
changes in their context of use while preserving usability.
This exposes users to different versions of UIs that can diverge
from each other at several levels, which may cause loss
of consistency. This raises the question of similarity between
UIs. This paper proposes an approach to comparing UIs by
measuring to what extent UIs have the same interaction
capabilities and appearance. We use the equivalence checking
formal method. The approach verifies whether two UI models
are equivalent or not. When they are not equivalent, the UI
divergences are listed, thus providing the possibility of leaving
them out of the analysis. In this case, the two UIs are said
equivalent modulo such divergences. Furthermore, the
approach shows that one UI can contain at least all interaction
capabilities of another. We apply the approach to a case
study in the nuclear power plant domain in which several UI
versions are analyzed, and the equivalence and inclusion
relations are demonstrated.