KR101036861B1 - Augmenting service description with expected usage information - Google Patents

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for configuring a high quality interface for interacting with web services. In one aspect, a method includes writing service description information for association with an interface of a web service in a service description language, listing expected usage information for the web service, wherein the expected usage information is a grouping of service operations. Listing expected usage information, comprising at least one of a probability of a service operation, a relative importance of a service operation, and an associative symbol for the service operation, and based on the service description information and the expected usage information. Thereby configuring an interface for a client to interact with the web service.

Description

Service description extended to expected usage information {AUGMENTING SERVICE DESCRIPTION WITH EXPECTED USAGE INFORMATION}

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention generally relates to computer systems and, more particularly, to user interfaces for Service-Oriented Architectures.

An important aspect of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the ability to describe a service interface. Clients can interact with services without having to know everything about embedded services by having clear interface description information. This enables various features of SOA such as service combinations. The service interface is described by a standardized language, in particular the Web Service Description Language (WSDL). Such a language describes the operational aspects of the service, such as operation names, parameters, and bindings, as well as information that documents the service, such as technical information of various service elements that are human readable. This information is important when creating a user interface for a client program that interacts with a service. However, this information is lacking when attempting to create a high quality client interface.

Known solutions essentially use WSDL to automatically generate a client that lists service operations. For example, Web Services Explorer, part of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform project (http: // www.eclipse.org/webtools/), automatically generates a browser-based client to interact with the service based on its WSDL. . This client displays a set of service operations as a flat list.

A system and method are provided for configuring a high quality interface for interacting with a web service. In one aspect, a method includes writing service description information for associating with an interface of a web service in a service description language, and listing expected usage information of the web service, wherein the expected usage information is associated with a service operation. Describing usage information, and interacting with the web service based on the service description information and the expected usage information, wherein the usage information includes at least one of grouping, probability of service operation, and relative importance of service operation. Configuring an interface for the client. One aspect of a system includes a medium for performing the steps of the method.

Further features as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numerals refer to functionally identical or similar components.

Systems and methods of constructing a high quality interface are provided.

In embodiments, the systems and methods of the present invention facilitate the creation of high quality user interfaces (UIs) for clients that interact with web services. In one embodiment, the system and method extends service description information with information about expected service usage, such as the relative importance of service operations and relationships between operations. By adding such information, the UI generated (automatically or manually) for a client interacting with the service can be optimized for various usability considerations, such as grouping related actions, which is commonly used ( common) makes the operation easy to invoke.

In one embodiment, the systems and methods of the present invention extend service description information to expected usage information. The system and method of one embodiment uses this information to create a high quality interface for interacting with a service. For example, the following information may be added to the service description information.

Grouping of service operations

Probability of service operations

Conditional probability of service operations

Relative importance of service operations

Mnemonic for operation

The grouping information indicates which operations belong together. This information can be used in a variety of ways, such as to serve as a layout hint for a graphical UI (which keeps the grouped operations physically in close proximity) or as grouping information for a menu or speech based interface. . For example, groups may be nested and may include other groups.

Probability information can be used, for example, to assign physical space (eg, large buttons for commonly used operations) to a graphical UI or to help prioritize menu entries and keyboard shortcuts. When the interface is dynamic (eg, voice-based interface), conditional probability information such as the likelihood of performing the operation based on which operation was performed previously may be useful. More generally, Markov processes can be associated with a collection of service operations that can be used to create an adaptive interface.

The importance information correlates with the probability, but may convey additional information, not just based on the probability. For example, power on / off operation may not be used very often but may be considered very important.

The associative symbol can be used to facilitate binding actions to hot keys. For example, an "output" operation may have an associative symbol "p" in the service description information, which will cause "<ctrl> -p" to be a shorthand for the output operation of the resulting interface.

For example, creating a high quality user interface that interacts with a web service, automatically or manually, by a programmer requires an understanding of how the service is used. In one embodiment, the systems and methods of the present invention encode such usage information of the extended service description information, which extends the service operation grouping and service operation information of the service description language (such as WSDL). It also extends to information related to the expected use, such as importance.

1 illustrates a high level architecture of a system for generating a high quality user interface for a service. The extended service description information 101 is provided as input to the interface generator program 102 which generates a high quality user interface for the service. The user interface may be generated from standard service description information, but extended description information is provided to generate a high quality user interface.

2 is a diagram illustrating how a programmer may use extended service description information. The extended service description information 201 is provided with reference to the programmer 202 using the expanded service description information 201 to generate a user interface for the service. The service description information 201 may be entered into a tool used by the programmer 202 to generate a user interface. Having extended technical information enables the creation of better user interfaces.

3 illustrates an example of a method or algorithm used by interface generator 102 in one embodiment of the invention. In this example, the generator creates a graphical user interface (GUI) with buttons for performing each service operation. The illustrated process illustrates how extended service description information can be used. After startup (step 301), the generator reads the extended service description information (step 302). The generator then divides the service operations into higher-level groups, as described in the extended service description information (step 303). The following steps apply to each group, and because the groups are nested, the steps may be applied repeatedly (step 304). Step 305 assigns a GUI window area (“material space”) to the group. The size of the area is calculated algorithmically, for example, based on the number of operations of the group and other possible considerations. Then, a button corresponding to each service operation of the group is generated (step 306). The button is resized according to the probability of the corresponding action (step 307). Thus, the relative size of the buttons corresponds to their expected frequency of use, and therefore, the more commonly used operations have a larger button. Finally, step 308 locates the button in a manner that takes into account its importance. Thus, for example, if an extended service provides a "power on / off" operation that is important but not frequently used, this operation will be displayed as a small size button in a prominent position. The process continues after completing the operation (step 310), as long as there are more groups to process (step 309).

The method illustrated in FIG. 3 describes one of many possible algorithms that use extended technical information to generate a high quality user interface. Other algorithms can generate non-GUI interfaces, use other elements of enhanced technical information (such as associative symbol information), and generate in other ways (such as using colors and fonts), not just size and position. Can affect the GUI. The method shown in FIG. 3 shows an example of how such extended information can be used.

4 is a screen shot of a user interface interacting with a service, which is automatically generated using the systems and methods of the present invention. In this example, the user interface operates on a mobile device (PDA) and uses its phone keypad. 4 shows a page of a user interface that includes a specific group of service operations (“alarm clock” operations). The groups are divided into pages, and each page contains up to 12 operations (since there are 12 keys on the phone's keypad). The order of operations in the page is related to the frequency of the operations. 4 demonstrates how the information of the extended service description can be translated into the components of the generated user interface.

The following codes show fragments of XML description information of the simple service that have not been enhanced and fragments of XML description information of the enhanced simple service as described in one embodiment of the present invention. The XML description information shows some of the components of the completed WSDL specification of this service, for example the components related to the practice of the present invention.

XML technical details of simple, unenhanced services

The above technical information shows a simple enumerated service behavior as is done in the current WSDL specification. The operations may have return types and parameters as well as other elements such as technical information omitted in this example. In this example, the service has ten operations, four operations controlling the alarm clock and six operations controlling the television. Looking at this technical information, it is not clear how the operations relate to each other and how often they are used.

The following technical information shows the same service improved according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Enhanced Simple Service XML Technical Information

In this enhanced technical information, the operations are grouped into two groups ("alarm clock" operation and "television" operation), with further sub-grouping (such as for all TV volume related operations). In addition, a frequency value is described for each action, which indicates the relative popularity of the action. Comparing the two pieces of technical information above, it is clear that the enhanced technical information provides additional important hints on how to create a high quality interface to interact with the service.

The systems and methods of the present invention may be implemented and operate on a general purpose computer or computer system. The computer system may be of any type known or may be a known system and typically communicates with another computer system in conjunction with a processor, memory device, storage device, input / output device, internal bus, and / or communication hardware and software, and the like. It may include.

The above-described embodiments are illustrative examples and should not be construed as limiting the invention to these specific embodiments. Accordingly, various changes and adjustments may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

1 is a flow diagram illustrating a high level architecture for generating a service interface from service description information in one embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a diagram illustrating how a programmer uses service description information at a high level to generate a user interface for a service of an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flow diagram of a sample process that utilizes enhanced service description information while generating a GUI for one embodiment of the present invention.

4 shows an example of a screen shot of a service interface generated for a mobile device whose interface uses the phone keypad of the device.

Claims (9)

In a method for configuring a high quality interface on a computer system to interact with a web service, Receiving service description information in a service description language for association with an interface of a web service; Receiving the expected usage information of the web service, wherein the expected usage information includes at least one of grouping of service operations, probability of service operations, relative importance of service operations, and associative symbols for service operations; Receiving input of expected usage information; And Configuring an interface for a client to interact with the web service based on the service description information and the expected usage information And configuring a high quality interface on the computer system. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuring step is performed automatically by a program running on a machine. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuring step is performed manually. The method of claim 1, wherein the expected usage information is described statically or dynamically based on service usage or a combination thereof. The method of claim 1, wherein the service operation forms a hierarchy. The method of claim 1, wherein the probability information comprises conditional probabilities. The method of claim 1, wherein the expected usage information is tailored for the user by communicating with the user. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein communicating with the user includes determining at least one of a user's location, age, gender, or other preferences. In the system to configure a high quality interface to interact with the web service, Means for describing service description information in a service description language for association with an interface of a web service; Means for describing expected usage information of the web service, wherein the expected usage information includes at least one of a grouping of service operations, a service operation probability, and a relative importance; And Means for configuring an interface for a client to interact with the web service based on the service description information and the expected usage information System for configuring a high quality interface comprising a.

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