SUIM: The Semantic User Interface Markup

Ensuring User Interface consistency is extremely difficult - manual review and developer coordination is required to achieve uniform interaction metaphors across operating systems, web browsers, applications, and disparate devices. This is complicated by the capabilities of various UI toolkits and specific devices, as well as the development choices of the application programmers. We propose to develop a static analysis tool - termed SUIM - that verifies the semantic properties of an implemented user interface by statically analyzing interfaces described with a widely-deployed, device-independent user interface markup language. Our design includes a simple domain-specific language to codify user interface guidelines drawn from canonical resources such as Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. The SUIM tool will evaluate the specified guidelines on a user interface description, producing errors or warnings if the interface violates any of the guidelines. Organizations will be able to specify and distribute UI guidelines that can be integrated directly into the application development workflow, providing an unprecedented level of application consistency without restricting the programmer's development environment.