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Subject: [tc-announce] OASIS TC Call For Participation: User Interface MarkupLanguage


A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS User
Interface Markup Language Technical Committee (UIML TC) has been
proposed by the following members of OASIS: Didier Courtaud, Association
Aristote; and Marc Abrams, Jim Helms, and Hedy Alban, individual members.

The proposal for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC
Process (see http://oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml), and is
appended to this message. The proposal, which includes a statement of
purpose, list of deliverables, and proposed schedule, will constitute
the TC's charter. The TC Process allows these items to be clarified
(revised) by the TC members; such clarifications (revisions), as well
as submissions of technology for consideration by the TC and the
beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's
first meeting.

To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an
OASIS member organization or an Individual member of OASIS; 2) notify
the TC co-chairs, Didier Courtaud (courtaud@lami.univ-evry.fr) and Marc
Abrams (abrams@vt.edu) of your intent to participate at least 15 days
prior to the first meeting; and 3) attend the first meeting on 16
December. You should also subscribe to the TC's mail list. Note that
membership in OASIS TCs is by individual, and not by organization. You
must be eligible for participation at the time you time you notify the
chair.

The private mail list uiml@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee
discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members
should subscribe to the list by going to the mail list web page at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to
uiml-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body
of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make
you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair
and attend the first meeting as described in the preceeding paragraph.)

A public comment list will be available for the public to make comments
on the work of this TC; a message may be sent to the TC via the address
uiml-comment@lists.oasis-open.org.

The archives of both of these mail lists are visible to the public at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/


Further information on this topic may be found in the Cover Page article 
"XML Markup Languages for User Interface Definition" at 
http://xml.coverpages.org/userInterfaceXML.html


-Karl

=================================================================
Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
+1 978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org  http://www.oasis-open.org





I. Name of the TC:

User Interface Markup Language (UIML) Specification Technical Committee


II. Statement of Purpose:

The purpose of the User Interface Markup Language (UIML) Specification
Technical Committee is to develop a specification for an abstract
meta-language that can provide a canonical XML representation of any
user interface (UI). The language should be capable of specifying the
requirements, design, and implementation of any UI.

The committee will use the UIML3 specification created by Virginia
Tech's Center for Human Computer Interaction, Harmonia, Inc., and other
organizations on uiml.org as a starting point [1]. The owners/creators
of this specification claim no intellectual property with regard to UIML
and will not seek licensing reparation for its use in this TC, nor will
they seek ownership of any work produced by the TC.

The TC differs in scope from other committees and working groups that
address concrete UI implementation languages (e.g., assembly language,
C, C++, CSS, Java, HTML, VoiceXML, WML, XForms, XHTML, XSL-FO). Instead,
this TC focuses on an abstract language, UIML, which expresses UIs at a
higher level than the concrete languages. UIML's goal is to subsume in
expressive power all concrete languages, and to permit efficient mapping
from UIML to any concrete language.

The TC has a secondary purpose -- to use UIML to bridge UI-related fields:

-- Techniques from the Human Computer Interaction field. These include
UI models, transformational techniques, techniques for computer
automation of UIs, usability engineering, generalization of the
Model-View-Controller, and new UI metaphors.
-- UI designers that want to think in terms of domain-specific
abstractions (e.g., navigation maneuver for an automobile UI, material
path for a factory automation UI), rather than at a widget level.
-- UI designers that want a way to capture author intents and map UIs to
different devices to create accessible UIs.
-- Techniques to internationalize UIs.
-- Techniques that help integrate UIs with Web Services (e.g., WSDL).

A general motivation for a canonical UI representation language is to
accelerate the development of tools for UI development. If practitioners
from these fields build tools with UIML, then the tools can
interoperate. Just as XML made toolbuilders more efficient (because
tools built for XML work for any XML vocabulary), so can UIML make UI
toolbuilders more efficient (because tools built for UIML work for any
vocabulary representing any concrete UI implementation language). Thus
the TC's work will serve to assemble the jigsaw puzzle pieces of UI and
HCI technology that have been created.

The TC will evaluate UIML3 and other UI initiatives to formulate a plan
for creation of a specification, develop the specification, create
compliance tests and implementations, and submit the specification to
the OASIS membership for approval.


Relationship to Existing Activities:

Many efforts related to use of XML to describe UIs are underway
throughout the industry. The following work may be relevant to this TC:
-- Many W3C Working Groups and Activities, including Accessibility, CSS,
Device Independence, Voice, XForms, XHTML
-- Mozilla XUL
-- OASIS HumanMarkup TC


III. List of Deliverables

Deliverables
-- Assessment of how UIML fits other committees and working groups
addressing user interfaces (projected for completion 90 days after first
meeting)
-- List of open issues in the UIML 3.0 specification (projected for
completion 120 days after first meeting)
-- Revised specification based on issues list (projected for completed
240 after first meeting)
-- Implementations of the specification by different parties
-- Compliance test suite
-- Best implementation practices
-- Revised Specification based on implementation experience

Optional deliverables
-- Documents describing requirements for UIML
-- Analysis of using UIML to make interfaces accessible
-- Document giving UIML examples


IV.  Language in Which the TC will Conduct Business

English


V.  Date and Time of the First Meeting

The first meeting will be held via teleconference on Monday, December
16, 2002. The meeting will start at 11:00 a.m. EST (16:00 GMT), and will
last one hour.


VI.  Meeting Schedule for the First Year

The TC will meet via monthly teleconference calls on the 2nd Monday of
each month at 11:00 a.m. EST (16:00 GMT), with additional meetings
scheduled as needed by the TC members. The phone call sponsors will be
determined at the initial meeting.

In April 2003 there will be no phone meeting. Instead, there will be a
face-to-face meeting held at the UIML 2003 conference in Paris, France.


VII.  Contact Information for TC Founders

Didier Courtaud, Association Aristote, courtaud@lami.univ-evry.fr
Marc Abrams, individual member, abrams@vt.edu
Jim Helms, individual member, jhelms@harmonia.com
Hedy Alban, individual member, Hedyalb@aol.com


VIII.  Co-Chairs
Didier Courtaud
Marc Abrams


IX.  Meeting Sponsors

Jim Helms, Harmonia, Inc., will sponsor the first TC meeting. 
Sponsorship of subsequent TC meetings, whether in person or conference
calls, will be determined by the TC membership.

References

[1] UIML3 Specification, 8 February 2002.
http://www.uiml.org/specs/docs/uiml30-revised-02-12-02.pdf
<https://webmail.vt.edu/redirect?http://www.uiml.org/specs/docs/uiml30-revised-02-12-02.pdf





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