UMLi: The Unified Modeling Language for Interactive Applications

User interfaces (UIs) are essential components of most software systems, and significantly affect the effectiveness of installed applications. In addition, UIs often represent a significant proportion of the code delivered by a development activity. However, despite this, there are no modelling languages and tools that support contract elaboration between UI developers and application developers. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has been widely accepted by application developers, but not so much by UI designers. For this reason, this paper introduces the notation of the Unified Modelling Language for Interactive Applications (UMLi), that extends UML, to provide greater support for UI design. UI elements elicited in use cases and their scenarios can be used during the design of activities and UI presentations. A diagram notation for modelling user interface presentations is introduced. Activity diagram notation is extended to describe collaboration between interaction and domain objects. Further, a case study using UMLi notation and method is presented.