Tools for building the human-computer interface of a decision support system

摘要

There has been a recent trend towards using graphical, direct-manipulation interfaces in Decision Support Systems (DSS). The development of graphical, direct-manipulation interfaces for a DSS is often expensive in programming resources and elapsed time. To reduce the time and cost of interfaces development, User Interface Management Systems (UIMS) have been developed. The guiding principles of UIMSs are the re-use of interface code, the promotion of interfaces with a consistent ‘look and feel’, and the separation of the functional part of an application from its interface. UIMSs have not been as successful as expected, even if due consideration is given to the immaturity of the technology. We feel this is due to a poor understanding of the basic theoretical formalisms and software design principles for UIMSs as well as the variety of competing standards. This expository paper surveys UIMSs and their role in the construction of the human-computer interface of DSSs. It covers the formalisms underlying UIMSs and describes representative systems. It then describes the direction DSS interfaces are headed towards by presenting illustrative examples of recent systems. Finally, we raise a set of six issues that need to be addressed if UIMSs are to become a standard tool to build DSSs.