FW: Information discussed during our last conference call

uiml message

-----Original Message-----
From: Jean Vanderdonckt [mailto:vanderdonckt@isys.ucl.ac.be]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 1:55 PM
To: Marc Abrams; James Helms
Subject: Information discussed during our last conference call

- Oliva Nova (by CARE Technologies) is a software that automatically generates web and Java applications from a task model (very simplified), a domain model (very sophisticated) containing a large behavior part. You can view a demo from http://www.care-t.com/products/index.html

- The American standard I mentioned is the NUREG-0700, released by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. See it at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0700/ This standard contains a lot of usability guidelines for electronic equipment in many different contexts of use, like ships, tanks, command post, control rooms, etc. The standard is being written under the responsibility of Brookhaven National Lab (www.bnl.gov). In the late nineties, I was leader of a project with them to put the guidelines on-line with some appropriate tool. See http://www.isys.ucl.ac.be/bchi/research/drg.htm

- My colleague Denis Javaux is a human factors consultant working for different companies like Airbus, BelgoControl (Belgian Air Traffic Control), Tractebel Engineering. He is using formal descriptions of panels, buttons, etc that he combines into an "activity model". Each control is attached to a series of properties and logical formula which can be executed. He developed a suite of tools in Python for this purpose. You can contact him at Denis.Javaux@skynet.be

- When I saw the UIML-CAD tool for the first time, I saw that there were many similarities between this software and IdealXML (which I sent you, I believe). I would be interested also to compare both tools in terms of coverage and capabilities. IdealXML produces UsiXML specifications for the task model, the domain model, the abstract UI model. Since last week, a new version of GrafiXML can be downloaded from http://www.usixml.org/?view=page&idpage=10, including the last version of the syntaxt-sensitive UsiXML editor.

- In general, you can register at http://www.usixml.org/index.php?view=login&idpage=10 so that you can be kept informed of any significant news about UsiXML.

Marc, you talked about another company for an expert systam that will serve as a design assistant. Is it possible to have more information about that? How do you implement it?

P.S. To sum up what I said regarding the contract, Quentin and I will do the consultancy with some part of the funds during the second quarter (Jan 2005 to June 2005) until we found a student and until he will be operational enough.