Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

Figure 2: Abstract UI model of the Facebook application:
(a) Functional application interface, (b)
Abstract interaction model, (c) GUI components
ponent when it is called. The last user action within the
component leads to its termination. The composition of
several GUI components concerning their invoke behavior is
achieved with an integration tree. This form of modeling allows
separate testing of the individual components and their
invoke behavior. Thus, for the generic testing approach universal
GUI components and a universal integration tree have
to be specified and tested in advance to ensure an error-free
generated user interface.
3. APPROACH
We applied the concept of GUI components to combine
UI screen elements, so called widgets, in order to define universal
modules which can be mapped to the abstract UI
model elements of unknown applications. For the example
Facebook application the abstract UI model is illustrated in
figure 2 consisting of the functional application interface (a)
and the abstract interaction model (b). In current research
these abstract elements are used at runtime to transform
them to combinations of respective HMI widgets on the target
system [5]. We adapt this to pre-tested combinations of
strictly defined GUI components in order to fulfill HMI testing
requirements. Each interaction state in the UI model is
the basis for a component. For the HMI concept given in figure
1 the target components are structured into application
field (AFL) and sub menu (SME). Generic GUI components
were identified in our example to support the functionality
required by the Facebook application. Figure 2 (c) illustrates
the three components (1,2,3) based on the abstract
interaction model. A result of the GUI component definition
is a list of widgets and value ranges for their critical
properties. Properties are critical concerning HMI testing
when they affect their size as an example. In total, we identified
more than 30 critical properties in 7 widgets for the
example scenario. In order to ensure the stability of the GUI
components, those widgets have to be tested and approved
for the given ranges of property values. Finally, all possible
sequences of components have to be applied in order to
test the integration tree. Since GUI components are encap-
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sulated concerning interaction logic and data flow, we only
need to analyze each transition separately. This means, each
component has to invoke every component at least once.
4. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
We illustrated the need to define and test GUI components
derived from abstract interaction models at HU design
time resulting in a universal repository of GUI components.
Then, external applications can be integrated at HU
runtime if their structure and behavior are described with
defined application interfaces and abstract interaction models.
This abstract application description is transformed to
compositions of GUI components provided by the HU. Correctness
of the HMI is guaranteed by this process: Either
a valid combination of pre-tested GUI components can be
found or the external application is not supported. This allows
a basic but flexible integration of external applications
into the automotive HMI with a model-driven approach. In
future work we plan to add more dynamics to the component
design and selection to increase flexibility. The results from
our widget and component analysis push the development
of future standards for HMI modeling languages, generation
processes and model-based testing processes.
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