An unofficial teleconference this evening

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Only Patrick and I attended the UBL HISC meeting this evening, so no formal 
minutes were recorded as we didn't have quorum to make any decisions.

However, we did have the opportunity to talk briefly about input 
methodologies and UBL.

I reported that Lars Oppermann last week demonstrated a prototype of an 
XForms implementation of UBL data entry using the layout key from UBL 
0.7.  This evening I was contacted again by Lars regarding the latest 
layouts and specifications from the committee and I've now directed him to 
that.

Regardless of the input mechanism (e.g. XForms), I am not, however, 
convinced that the UN Layout Key represents the "best" input methodology 
for a UBL document.

It is certainly an acceptable layout for input, as the positional semantics 
of the information on the page are well understood around the world based 
on historical dependence on the form field positions.

In conversation with Patrick I related that in parallel with the XForms 
implementation of the UN Layout Key, I hope the HISC can establish 
requirements and develop strategies and implementations of input 
methodologies that are not simply mimics of printed forms.  There might 
even be handheld-oriented profiles of the input methodologies as well as 
full-screen-oriented profiles.

In my assessment of the positions of fields in the UN Layout Key, I posit 
(though I have no certainty) that some of the field location decisions were 
made as pragmatic tradeoffs of real-estate restrictions on the page, not as 
part of a methodical strategy of assisting the data entry person in the 
fulfillment of the information.

I would think it behooves us to try and come up with a UBL input 
methodology appropriate to the entry of UBL information and specify 
variants of the methodology based on possible situations in which people 
need to create or edit UBL documents in a visual layout.

Patrick reported that a graduating-year project team is exploring an XForms 
implementation of UBL documents for the ebXML appliance, but that the team 
was still a long way away from submitting any kind of report.  Patrick will 
report to the HISC list on the progress of the team.

I will try to call a meeting next week at the same day/time.

...................... Ken

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