Interactive development of cross-device user interfaces

Current GUI builders provide a design environment for user interfaces that target either a single type or fixed set of devices, and provide little support for scenarios in which the user interface, or parts of it, are distributed over multiple devices. Distributed user interfaces have received increasing attention over the past years. There are different, often model-based, approaches that focus on technical issues. This paper presents XDStudio--a new GUI builder designed to support interactive development of cross-device web interfaces. XDStudio implements two complementary authoring modes with a focus on the design process of distributed user interfaces. First, simulated authoring allows designing for a multi-device environment on a single device by simulating other target devices. Second, on-device authoring allows the design process itself to be distributed over multiple devices, as design and development take place on the target devices themselves. To support interactive development for multi-device environments, where not all devices may be present at design and run-time, XDStudio supports switching between the two authoring modes, as well as between design and use modes, as required. This paper focuses on the design of XDStudio, and evaluates its support for two distribution scenarios.