Modeling the system-user dialog using interaction traces

It is generally the case that some user interface (UI) reverse engineering is needed for every non-trivial reengineering project. Typically, this is done through code analysis, which can be very difficult and/or expensive. When code analysis is not a must, as for wrapping purposes, system-user inter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inProceedings Eighth Working Conference on Reverse Engineering pp. 208 - 217
Main Authors El-Ramly, M., Iglinski, P., Stroulia, E., Sorenson, P., Matichuk, B.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 2001
Subjects
Application software
Artificial intelligence
Clustering methods
Forward contracts
Graphical user interfaces
Prototypes
Reverse engineering
Testing
User interfaces
Wrapping
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Summary:It is generally the case that some user interface (UI) reverse engineering is needed for every non-trivial reengineering project. Typically, this is done through code analysis, which can be very difficult and/or expensive. When code analysis is not a must, as for wrapping purposes, system-user interaction can be an alternative input for the reverse engineering process. In the CelLEST project, we have developed a prototype, called LeNDI (Legacy Navigation Domain Identifier), to test this idea. LeNDI records traces of the legacy screen snapshots and user actions, while the user interacts with the legacy system. Then, it extracts a set of features for every snapshot and employs artificial intelligence methods to build a model of the legacy UI, called the state-transition graph. LeNDI uses two clustering methods to group similar snapshots together as one system screen modeled by one node on the graph. LeNDI uses the user actions recorded in traces to model the behavior of the legacy screens as the graph arcs. Evaluation results of this process are encouraging. The state-transition graph is used to classify each individual snapshot forwarded by the legacy system to the user while he interacts with it and is a main input to the forward engineering phase of the project.
ISBN:0769513034
9780769513034
ISSN:1095-1350
2375-5369
DOI:10.1109/WCRE.2001.957825