Data-oriented Dialogue Specification

Nowadays, application programs are available for a wide variety of domains. The applications are developed using different style-guides for their user interfaces. The way similar tasks are carried out differs depending on the application used. Such inconsistency results in unnecessary learning time and is the cause of mistakes leading to the loss of data and effort. A straight forward approach to this problem would be the standardization of the user-interface. Unfortunately this does not take into account the preferences and capabilities of different users. This paper presents DODS, a formal dialogue specification method that enables the generation of consistent user interfaces. The generation process is flexible enough to allow user interfaces to be adapted to specific preferences.