Ideas for User Interface Transformation

This list of potential user interface transformations that might be supported by the FLUID framework was compiled during a working meeting on Thursday, May 2nd with the ATRC development team and Richard Schwertdfeger from IBM. This is by no means a comprehensive or definitive list; just an unordered, unprioritized collection of ideas about transformation. Please feel free to add to it.

Categories of Transformations

• Layout & Presentation
• Navigation (ie. Changes to the relationships of parts of the user interface to each other)
• Control

Layout and Presentational Transformations

• Density and complexity
• of information
• of user interface controls
• Font sizing
• Font leading and tracking
• Borders and colours
• Spacing
• Text and layout direction (vertical vs. horizontal, left vs. right)
• Linearization and flattening of columns, etc.
• The appearance of textual cues: sarcasm, emphasis, humour, etc
• Form field indications: required vs. optional, etc.
• Speed of transitions
• Link affordances:
• external links
• navigational cues
• purpose of a link(eg. definitions, relationships, tags, etc.)

Navigational and Behavioural Transformations

• Focus cues
• Concept maps
• Describes the structure or overall shape of a user interface visually, showing regions and how they relate to each other
• Importance levels (eg. politeness in live regions, etc.)
• Sorting (ascending vs. descending)
• Breadcrumbs
• Tool tips and expanded descriptions

Control Transformations

• Self-voicing, auto-completion, word prediction, especially in context- or application-specific ways
• Toolbars and menus

Other

• Accessibility compliance of content

Augmentations
Visual: magnification

• linearization becomes important
• wrapping text