Design alternatives for GUI development with discourse-based communication models

Abstract

In general, design has to take many alternatives into account. In particular, for a given interaction design many potential implementations of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) exist. Additionally, for a given problem many different design alternatives are possible. We address this latter issue in this paper and investigate different ways for achieving certain information exchange between two interacting parties. Our concrete approach to communicative interaction design in this context deals with Discourse-based Communication Models of such design alternatives. We show that for more or less the same problem, different alternatives may be preferable, even depending on the required information exchange between the GUI and the application logic. We also sketch how typical GUIs for such design alternatives may look like, but without elaborating on alternatives in the course of such rendering.